For me, the flight always comes first. So I turn on the camera and just fly as if the camera isn't even there. And then, upon landing, I just hit the button, okay, video recorded. And then I decide, okay, what happened during this flight? And that's how a story is born. That's why I also named my channel XC -Stories.
Podz-Glidz, the Lu-Glidz podcast.
Stories from the cosmos of paragliding. Today with... Dimitri Balabanov. And I am Lucian Haas. There are surely hundreds, if not thousands, of paragliders who document all their flights with a GoPro on their helmet or an Insta360 camera on a stick. For many, it's a way to keep the incredible experience of flying in front of their eyes even on days when they aren't flying. However, many of the resulting videos are rather mundane for other viewers. Especially if they only show hours of boring soaring at a ridge or endless circling in a weak thermal.
Videos become valuable to others when they tell a story. Dimitri Balabanov, who lives in Munich, explained this to Maxime for his videos. XC-Stories is not only the name of his YouTube channel, but also an Instagram account and a Telegram group where he posts special moments from his flights captured on video, and discusses with his followers what lessons can be drawn from them. His most famous video is one in which he explains very clearly how to fly a 120-kilometer triangle in Bassano. Dimitri invests dozens of hours in video editing, graphics, and voiceovers for such projects. What drives him and why he doesn't see himself as a superstar despite having thousands of followers—he tells all that and more in this episode 186 of Podz-Glidz.
By the way, I can only present these kinds of inspiring conversations because there are supporters who financially support my work on the podcast and blog. Join in. You can find out how on the Gleitschirm-Blog Lu-Glidz, specifically on the "Fördern" page.
Dimitri, what did you learn from your last flight?
Oh, that's a big story. I actually learned a lot. I learn something new with every flight. Not just technically, but maybe also how to fly the route best, what my glider is capable of doing in the air. Yeah, so as I said, learning something new every flight. I can't say there's one specific flight that gave me the most or anything like that, but yeah.
I read an interview with you where you said that you learn something new on every flight. But that's why I'm asking, what did you learn on your last one? Is there a particular story that stands out?
Yes, there actually is, because in my last flight I had to throw my savior out. Oh, I didn't know that now. But
that's obviously a... What happened?
Yes, well, I learned how to throw the rescue. I did it for the first time. What happened? I was really high and probably there was some wind shear or a really turbulent situation that caused me to be unable to stop a really big front collapse. And then it opened asymmetrically with a twist, so with seven twists then, and I couldn't do anything anymore. Seven twists? Yes, exactly. Wow. And the glider then got into a sort of backfly rotation, like a gentle rotation, nothing serious, but I just couldn't untwist it. And the only thing left to do was to throw the rescue because the glider could no longer be brought under control. And that's what I did.
Was that at a high altitude above ground, because you mentioned an inversion and shear. And that's common when you're very high up. That means you still had a long flight left in the reserve, roughly?
So, no. I tried to fight it a bit, of course. Yeah, I had a lot of altitude, more than 1000 meters above ground, when I took that huge collapse and then the twist. And then I tried to do something, to somehow twist out of it. But it didn't work. I actually managed to twist two rotations, but that was it. And then I lost a lot of altitude. And the rescue went up to maybe 200 or 150 meters above ground, and then I flew the remaining meters on the rescue.
Oh, so you really struggled for a long time, from 1,000 meters down to 200 meters or something like that. Yeah. So, if you say you learned something from that, what's the lesson you've taken away?
Yeah, I actually wanted to—I haven't gotten around to it yet—I wanted to write a big report for myself. Everything that happened, why it happened? What did I look at? What did I do, what did the glider do? I have everything on video, I can really analyze every second of what happened, how I reacted, what was right, what wasn't right. And then, of course, I still have the day in my head and all that. So I'd first summarize all of that into a big report and then I'd draw conclusions on how to handle it going forward. What could those consequences be? Anything is possible. It depends on what summary I prepare beforehand. I might decide to choose a different glider because then I...
to that conclusion, the gesture is too risky for me. Or maybe I can say, then I'll do SAV twice a year and not just once. I'll have to see.
Did you land gently with the rescuer down there, or did you get slammed into the rocks? I had
pure luck.
Two trees caught me. So the rescuer and the glider. And then I landed, basically, just 50 centimeters from the ground, soft as butter. A glider
is it intact and the retter too? Or do you have to buy a new glider anyway and are now facing the decision? What happens next?
The glider only has a few small tears and the lines are all fine. They just need to be repacked.
You just said the rescuers are all fine. Did you throw out several rescuers?
I threw two rescuers. The first one, unfortunately, didn't open because that rotation had pretty low sink rates. And then it just took a long time. That first rescuer kind of flew around me for a bit. It wouldn't open, and I didn't see any point in trying to deal with it to get it open right then. So I just threw the second rescuer directly. Do you always fly with two rescuers? Yes, I always fly with two rescuers.
And is that a harness where they both sit under your butt? Or do you have a side rescuer under your butt and a front rescuer? Yes, both are left and right, so. And then you, I assume you're right-handed, pulled right first and then left, or how was that? Right, it was just like that. And when the second rescuer opened, did the first one maybe also open, because maybe some laypeople relieved the load or something?
No, the first one didn't come apart. It was sort of wrapped around me somehow, and I couldn't pull it apart anymore. I basically ended up with it in my hands, so to speak, with the first rescuer.
Where was that? That was in Bassano. There
Do you fly very often? Exactly. It's like your living room flight. I mean, you live in Munich, but someone once told me, if you want to know who's flown to Bassano the most in recent years, you should ask Dimitri.
Yes, I'm in Bassano often, often ten or more times a year when the weather is right. And I like flying to Bassano. It's only three and a half to four hours from Munich. It's worth it.
And where in Bassano did you get caught by the wind shear?
That was the western turning point, far from Passubio, Monte Cagliano. Normally, I've actually never experienced such turbulent air in this corner before. And I also checked my IGC track—so, in that flight, I saw that in the upper area above 2,000 meters, the wind was coming more from the north. And down below, there was a lot of east wind. That's why I suspected it was exactly that wind shear between north and east. And maybe it was also a bit föhn-like, turbulent up there, and everything just happened to come together in a bad way. You had
but wasn't that on your glider? I mean, did you not know at all that there might be slight north foehn conditions?
Yeah, I did. I saw in the forecast that there was some north wind at altitude. But it was all within the green zone, let's say. Nothing extraordinary, no strong north foehn or anything like that. But the day was generally pretty turbulent from my perspective. Even at the beginning, I noticed it was already rocking quite a bit and the air was somehow so mobile, and we also had a lot of east wind. That's usually pretty unpleasant in Bassano when there's a lot of east wind.
Because it's always tumbling along the edge like that, so you probably always have a lot of these stationary rotors that you constantly have to fly through.
Yeah, maybe so. But I also suspect that when there's this northern component, it basically pushes this wind from the east towards Bassano, and maybe the air is generally a bit cooler or drier. You said you had everything on
Video. That means there will also be a detailed video about this rescue operation on your channel.
I haven't decided yet if I'll make a detailed video. As I said, I have to write my report first, then decide how to proceed, and after that, I'll decide what kind of video to make out of it. But there will probably be at least one summary of what happened, how it went down, and everything I did. But how detailed it will be, I don't know yet.
Your channel, which some people might already know, but for those who don't, it's definitely worth checking out—it's called XC Stories. XC Stories. On YouTube, you're also present on Insta. You also have a Telegram group with the same name, XC Stories. But let's stick to the YouTube channel for now. Why did you actually start this channel?
That's a good question, and I probably don't have an answer for it myself yet. I actually studied engineering, specializing in multimedia, and I was already involved with video a bit back during my studies. I'd edit small video clips, record things, and I always enjoyed working on that. I had some idea, let's say, I'd learned a bit about how to do it. And when I started with the sport, with paragliding, it just developed naturally that I recorded my flights, just for myself. At first, I didn't want to do anything with them, just to watch for myself what I was doing in the air, what was happening around me, because at the beginning, of course, I was always preoccupied with myself.
That's always a bit of a stress. And at some point, I made a little summary of my first flight trip to Norma. We only had one flight in a week, and I think I spent 40 minutes somewhere just sorting things out. I made a 20-minute, very boring video out of it where nothing happens, where I'm just moving the edge back and forth, to the right. And there were 20 views on YouTube, and then I thought, okay, that's it. Yeah, and I kept going a bit with these short summary videos. They weren't that interesting, but at some point in Bassano, I experienced an interesting story.
I had to dig myself out somewhere deep at Caltrano after a crossing. It took me a lot of time and I tried so many things—the edge, the corner, and so on. And afterwards, everything worked. Then I could really gain height and finish my flight or my triangle. I also made a small video out of that, showing how I struggled and everything I did, with a few text comments. I'm flying here now because I think something could work here. If it doesn't work, then we'll try somewhere else. And this video suddenly got a bit
found its audience. There were actually comments like, "Oh, interesting, keep going." Then I thought, okay, apparently there is interest in this, and that's how I started with the videos and it went from there. And now you're saying you have at
you always have the camera with every one of your wings and it's always running.
Correct, exactly. I record all flights completely from takeoff to landing.
And whether you make a film out of it or not, you decide that afterwards, or you say, okay, there was a special situation, I'll make a short clip for Insta out of that and pull out the two minutes or whatever?
Yeah, but my hard drive plays a part too, because I think I currently have 10 terabytes of footage and I have to do something with it. Otherwise, my SD cards are also all full. Yeah, so I actually try to make interesting parts or interesting stories out of it. Any "rule of thumb" or just some standard, run-of-the-mill flights—I actually delete those afterwards. Luckily, the camera doesn't make huge files for the entire flight; they're 30-minute segments, so I can just delete the files or the segments that aren't interesting and keep the important ones.
But even so, 10 terabytes of just film and flight data that you have on there, that's already quite a lot.
Yeah, that's a lot, and that's not the biggest problem. If I have to or want to make something out of it, I have to experience the whole thing again and watch all those videos, and watching a 10-hour flight is already really exhausting. When I'm editing, I also have to choose an angle, what I want to show, maybe play around with the speed and so on. See what all happened. Not everything stays in your memory, and I have to say, that's a challenge.
Do you really have to watch all those 10 hours again?
Not entirely, but a lot of it. Yeah, I can say, for example, for my video about the Spektholm Triangle, I probably spent 80 working hours in total on that, because I also had to look at a lot of things. Played around with the graphics a bit again, did research, and compiled different flights. That takes a real amount of time. You're filming with a 360
-degree camera? Yes, exactly. That's probably even more work because then you also have to decide, okay, which image am I actually taking now? Do I want to take a wide shot where you can see the whole landscape, or do I just take a small section of it or something else? I mean, you have to make an incredible amount of decisions each time on how you're going to translate that visually.
Exactly, that's also the challenge. It's really about what do I want to show? And in a 360-degree video, everything is in there. I have to choose something from it. And that's not always easy either.
80 hours? Out of those 80 hours, what would you say is the part that... I mean, what takes up the most work?
That's tough. Yeah, first I had to gather all the information from the videos I had. The video is actually based on several flights. There's one main story from one flight, and I also suggested a few alternative versions for how to fly certain sections. I pulled those from the other videos. I had to go back and check those again. Of course, I had to analyze my flights again, look at where I flew where. And of course, all the graphic work. Working with the graphics takes a lot of time too. Different valley winds, thermals, airspaces, all sorts of things. It's all quite demanding.
I'm not a graphics professional, of course. I do this as a hobby. So, a real pro who does this for a living would probably be a bit faster. But for me, it takes a bit more time.
Graphics—if you look at your films, you really do, like you said, you draw in the valley wind, for example, or you circle some peaks in the video and say, "Here, you can fly there, but you have to arrive at the corresponding altitude and so on." Do you create a specific overlay for that with a graphics program, or how does that work?
I use two tools. One tool actually does the overlay stuff—all the flight data I show, like the speed, altitude, and so on. I use a separate tool for the entire flight, but the rest of the work I do in one tool. That's DaVinci Resolve Studio. It's a paid version, but the great thing about it is that this tool really has everything I need. I can process the audio, add the graphics, edit the video, adjust the color components, everything you can imagine. It's really like an almighty tool for every use case. I really like it. I looked for a long time, tried many tools—paid ones, free open-source versions too—and I wasn't really happy with any of them, but that was really the first tool,
which I really liked and then I just decided to buy it.
If you're making a film like that now, especially about a 200-kilometer flight like the Speikboden one, where you explain all of that—I think it lasts almost 20 minutes or something—how you fly lengthwise, how you did it, what alternatives there are. How do you go about that? I mean, do you really make a kind of script beforehand where you actually write down, like you said earlier, your rescue, your departure? I want to write a report about it first, so you're basically writing a kind of flight report for yourself, where your key points were and so on, to then see how I can tell that as a story in the video.
Actually, every video of mine is scripted. I first write down everything I want to show in the video—like which images or which sections I want to focus on more—and I actually describe the most important moments I want to show in this video, and then it goes on. Then I pick out the videos that fit, so, yeah, for this Speichboden video, I actually wrote everything down: we fly like this, I have to tell that, I definitely have to mention this, but it's still kind of in my head. So there are only a few videos where I took a bit more information from other sources, like books, for example,
like with the
Möhl-Teilreieck, I had to ask a few friends for their opinions on that and look it up in books, but most of the videos I make are really just based on my own experience—the routes as I flew them.
What's your motivation behind investing so much time into this, and ultimately so much time into the quality? Of course, it's nice to watch videos like these, but if you say 80 hours for one story, that's quite a number. Other people might say, then I'd rather go flying than make such extensive and elaborate videos.
I ask myself that question from time to time too. Why do I actually do this? The simplest answer is, it's just my hobby, well, part of my hobby. Most people, or many people, just fly, and I fly and make my videos about it. That's the only motivation, I think. It means you're not
Gleitschirm-Blog, but you're a paraglider filmmaker?
Yes, I'm a pilot, I think. But also a pilot with a camera.
Do you ever fly with a story in mind? Like, where you already know beforehand, okay, today I want to—I know I'm going to fly in Bassano or something, but I want to tell a specific story. So I fly and I lead this story? Or is it always the flights as they come, and you create the story you can tell from them afterwards?
Yeah, for me, I think it's quite the opposite of many people who make these kinds of videos. For me, the flight always comes first. I turn the camera on and just fly as if the camera isn't even there. I don't even pay attention to whether it's running or anything. I fly the way I fly. I enjoy my moments. I make my decisions, and then at landing, I just hit the button, okay, video recorded, and then I decide, okay, what happened during this flight? Was there anything interesting I could make a video about? Yes, no. And then a story emerges. That's why I also named my channel XC Stories, Paragliding XC Stories. Yeah, every flight is a story, and I make these stories out of them—it's nothing scripted, nothing prepared.
So you've never planned a flight specifically for a video, but rather you say, no, flying is one thing and the video comes after.
Not exactly. I have a few videos where I test out certain gliders a bit. In those, of course, I explicitly turned on my camera and did some stuff with this wing or this glider. Flew some maneuvers or a short distance to see how the paraglider flies, how it feels. That's probably the only exception. Yeah, otherwise. When I'm just flying routes, then, as I said, I fly as if the camera didn't even exist.
Out of all the videos you've already made, which one is the best in your opinion?
Well, that's... I don't even know how to answer that question. The best, by what criteria?
Yeah, for you, where you say, hey, somehow this is the video I'm particularly proud of. Let's just say...
So. Yeah, it's hard to say. I think the video about the Bassano triangle is probably my most well-known one. I'd guess that. I also get a lot of feedback from people. They thank me. It's really nice to hear, "Hey, I tried the 100er triangle yesterday and it worked. And those thermals you showed in the video, they saved me. Thanks, thanks." I'm really happy to hear stuff like that. Otherwise, I have another video about my big Spike-Boden triangle. The day was just so perfect and everything worked out so well. And in the evening, I think around 8 p.m., just before sunset, I circled around the peaks somewhere in the duck part in the thermals.
It was just such a brilliant day.
I think your Bassano video is your most successful one so far. I just checked earlier, and it has almost 66,000 views. Is seeing that a video is particularly successful something that motivates you, or not? Or have you also been disappointed, seeing a video where you actually put in a lot of work or something, and it only gets 3,000 views and you wonder what you did wrong? So, do you think about your target audience and who's watching in that regard, or do you ultimately make the videos for yourself and just get happy if they're successful in the end?
It's difficult because YouTube has adjusted its algorithms by now, and the algorithms that worked back then for this Bassano video don't work anymore today. No matter how good the video is, you get really few views because YouTube is currently focusing on Shorts. Those small, short videos are more interesting for the platform. That's why I don't look at those numbers or the views at all. It's also really difficult to get any views in our small paraglider scene, especially with the videos I make. They are rather, let's say, boring to some extent because, well, some guy is explaining how to do some
...turns in, maintains some edges, makes circles somewhere, and doesn't anymore somewhere else. Well, who watches that? Only a specific circle of people. And that's why I think it's already, yeah, impossible to get thousands of views. It's not a motivation, not a goal, and not the reason why I do the whole thing.
And what would you say, who is your target audience for the videos? Do you have anyone in mind, like, who am I doing this for? Is it more for the XC beginners who need to learn a bit? Or who do you make the videos for, in terms of your vision? For
everyone who has a bit of interest. Yes, I think you're right. Maybe more the people or pilots who are first interested in cross-country flights, who want to fly a bit more than they can manage right now. They can maybe learn something from it, like how to fly certain triangular routes. Where are the difficult spots? Where do you have to be a bit careful? What should you watch out for? For the very experienced pilots, my videos probably don't provide anything at all, because they already know how to do certain things themselves and fly fast and so on. That's definitely not the target group. Yes, I would just say a regular, average cross-country pilot who maybe wants to improve a bit or learn something new, new routes, new flight areas—that would probably be my target group.
If you analyze your flights so intensively—because if you say, okay, after a triangular route like Spaltboden, I have to go through 10 hours of flight again—then you actually have the time to deal with some details a bit more intensely. Or, for example, you might let something run in time-lapse and suddenly see something in the time-lapse that you didn't see at all while flying slowly. Namely, the typical stationary thermals, where you always see, hey, that cloud is always in the same spot, it keeps growing upwards or something like that. And you can see relatively well in a time-lapse where that is. Would you say that by making such intensive videos, you also became the pilot you are today?
A very interesting question. To be honest, I haven't really thought about that. I can also confirm that you only see certain things when the video is running in time-lapse.
I just don't see some things during the flight because they take so long, meaning they're so slow. The movement of the clouds or various changes in the shadows and so on. But I wouldn't say I've learned anything from that, because it all happens in hindsight, and then later on a real flight, to come up with that idea again, to think about it, to pay attention, maybe that kind of situation could develop. It's difficult. So, honestly, I'm really not a super talented pilot. I'm an autonomous...
long-haul pilot. Yeah, you shouldn't expect too much from me.
expect. But you're a frequent flyer. So, one experience I've had is that when you start wanting to explain things to other people, like how something works—for example, if you explain how to fly a 120-kilometer triangle in Bassano or a 100-kilometer triangle—then you have to mentally grasp things in a certain way and say, okay, I have a certain theory on how specific things work, or I've found out from conversations with other pilots that this and that spot work best, or at this time, you probably fly the flank mostly because the valley wind is hitting it like that or whatever. Don't you think that because you have to sort of understand these things if you want to start explaining them, you might approach the matter with a different system next time you're in the same spot, because you've basically already grasped it mentally.
...developed a model for itself, at least. You can just fly over it, it works, you find the thermals, you're happy, and you just keep flying. But if you want to explain why right there and all that, you suddenly have to establish a systemic model—why was the thermal exactly in that spot, how, and oh, it's probably always there because I see the same thing happening with other flights. It's like suddenly understanding more of the background, and because of that, maybe making a video like that—it's like a kind of very elaborate, but still a kind of debriefing, which you then do with it, and where you then probably very quickly become sort of an expert for certain routes or something like that.
Yeah, I really have to think about it myself. I can say this: I always fly by feel; I don't really have a proper system for it.
Look, see how what works, how the air works, it always happens in a flow for me, in flight. But what I heard, someone told me they thought about what a video of paragliding exits in my flight area would look like, and someone actually put together such a video in their head and discovered certain things, and that was an "aha" moment for me too—yeah, people do think about that, and my videos probably also help people understand the flight areas better sometimes by imagining a video like the ones on my channel.
That made me happy, of course, but I don't really do that myself. I just fly however it feels right for me at the moment, and if it doesn't work, I stay on the ground. If it goes well, a great Existory comes out of it. Maybe
you're a systematizer who doesn't even realize they're a systematizer. Maybe so.
If I remember correctly, you're a programmer too. Yes, that's right. I'm in software development. In your non-flying life. So there you also have to... proceed relatively systematically and build things according to certain rules and whatnot. Does that also show up in your flights, or would you really say that as a pilot, I'm a different person? In that case, I'm just the...
gut feeling pilot only.
Yeah, in programming, everything is straightforward. There's one, there's zero, and then everything is deterministic. In the air, it looks completely different. We can't see the air, and it behaves differently somehow. Many things are simply unpredictable. When the cloud comes, when the shading occurs, how strong the thermals will be, whether there's a lee somewhere or not—it's not always set. And that's why I think a systematic approach might not even work here. At least I haven't found any use for it, and as I said, I just fly by feel. I also really, or I actually place a lot of importance on the
safety aspects. If something doesn't feel right to me, I just don't fly there and I abort the flight or fly in a different direction or something like that. I don't try to push the limits at all or come up with systems that would work in a mathematical way.
What is your motivation when you go flying?
Flying itself. That's a really complicated question. Because I ask myself that almost every flight. Why are you back in the town square now? What do you want to do now? You invest an enormous amount of time. You really are
A frequent flyer. As far as I know, Dimitri is already out again, he's already driven to Bassano or something. So every free minute besides your work, as far as I can tell, you spend somehow revolving around paragliding.
Not exactly.
Probably either with flying or with making videos.
Yeah, exactly. That's the direction it goes in. I just love that feeling of being in the air, and I also like long-distance flights as such. I don't have to set any records or be particularly far, fast, or high in any way. I'm just swept away by that state of being in the air, flying a route in nature, without engine noise, and with the eagles circling and all those birds in Colombia, with the giants. To circle together with such a huge flock of birds. That's such an experience, it's just incredibly beautiful.
What was your motivation to start flying in the first place? I mean, what made you do it?
I think that was pure coincidence. I only moved to Germany in 2011, but before that, I was there quite often. Where are you originally from? I'm originally from Russia, I moved in 2011, but before that, I was in Germany a lot on business trips. And my colleagues and I often went on trips, to the mountains or to Italy, just taking a rental car for the weekend. And then somewhere in the Alps at a parking lot, I looked up once and saw paragliding. I didn't even know that it was paragliding and that the thing is called a paraglider. I had no idea about it. Then I thought, wow, they're circling there in the air.
You probably need at least a million dollars with a paraglider, with a paraglider, with a paraglider, with a paraglider. And maybe you have to be an athlete and train for ten years. And then you get a chance to circle up there with them. And something like that just got lodged somewhere in the back of my mind. And after moving to Germany, the thought suddenly popped up: look, what were those actually, or what were people doing there? I did a quick Google search and just discovered that you don't actually need, that you don't actually need, that you don't actually need any requirements for a little introductory day. I booked it right away and flew myself on the first day. Yes, of course, it was only ten seconds from a 50-meter hill. But that just hooked me, like, immediately.
And then I thought, oh, I'm doing this now. And that's how it started. And since then, have you become a constant flyer? Yes, since then it's been my only hobby. I used to do a bit of private programming, open source. But by now, everything has been put on hold somehow because I just can't find the time for it anymore.
Do you ever miss that? I mean, does it ever bother you that flying takes up such a huge space in your life?
No, I wouldn't say it bothers me. I have the freedom now to decide really spontaneously what I do on the weekend, where I go, how long I fly, and when I come back, since I don't have a wife or kids. Well, my employer doesn't always agree with that. But at least I still have that great freedom. And so far, I haven't had my fill, let's put it that way. I want to keep flying. Are you
did you ever get stranded in the wrong place during a long cross-country flight, so you didn't get back in time and had to tell your employer the next day, I can't come in, I'm still stuck somewhere in the middle of the Alps?
No. No, that hasn't happened yet, but I've come home really, really late before, like way past midnight, and still had to work the next day, but that worked out.
As a pilot, how would you say, how ambitious are you?
Yeah, that's a special question for me. I really have no motivation to set any records or, you know, be the best, the furthest, or the highest. On the other hand, I don't want to be the worst or sink immediately or something. It's like a balance between ambition and reason, I don't know, maybe something like that. What does reason say? Yeah, reason says that I'm simply not talented enough to set records, or I'd really have to quit my job and train every day—like, a lot, flying 1,000 hours a year—maybe then it would work.
I'm just not ready for that yet, or I don't really want to do it, because top performance is always associated with more risk, and I'm always on the cautious side. I have my own safety management or risk management where I decide how I fly, when I fly, how long I fly, and so on. That's why I think this risk management is simply not compatible with all that top performance.
What does your risk management involve, in the sense that it sometimes holds you back, where you'd say that to perform at your best, my risk management would basically get in your way?
Yes, that's quite simple; I very often use this Swiss cheese model with different layers, so risk assessment and avoiding risk situations, and in... so, Swiss cheese.
-model, just so that people...
then not so well either
to really imagine it, it's about a cheese that has holes.
Yes, exactly.
And if there are many slices lined up, you shouldn't be able to see through a hole through all the slices—meaning, all the different layers of safety that might be there—because then you might fall into that hole, and ultimately, that wouldn't be advantageous for yourself. And according to the Swiss cheese model, you should see as few holes as possible where you could fall in somewhere.
Exactly, right. And these individual cheese slices can also really brake. For example, one cheese slice could be: if it gets really turbulent, I'll exit the gas and just fly with the brake in my hand. Then I'm slower, and the others are already all gone. I might be a bit safer, but just slower. You could, I mean,
As far as I know, you fly in a two-liner. Yes. And of course, you can steer very nicely using the rear risers and also plow through at least some turbulence in the gas quite well. Do you do that too, or are you really such a, in quotes, cautious pilot or a chicken or whatever you want to call it, who then really says, no, as soon as it gets a bit bumpy, even if I'm flying in a two-liner, I'd rather get out of the gas and play it safe.
Yeah, I do fly in turbulence even in the gas. However, my comfort level or decision-making level is significantly lower than that of the top pilots. Yeah, I do fly in turbulence even in the gas. However, my comfort level is significantly lower than that of the top pilots. Yeah, I do fly in turbulence even in the gas. However, my comfort level is significantly lower than that of the top pilots.
Yes, I can fly in turbulence and in the gas. However, my comfort level
significantly lower than that of the top pilots. Yes, I do fly in turbulence and in the gas. However, my comfort level is significantly lower than that of the top
-pilots. Yes, I do fly in turbulence and in the gas. However, my comfort level is significantly
lower than that of the top pilots. Yes, I do fly in turbulence and also in the gas. However, my comfort level is significantly lower than that of the top pilots. Yes, I do fly in turbulence and also in the gas. However, my comfort level is significantly lower than that of the top pilots.
Yes, I do fly in turbulence and also in the gas. However, my comfort level is significantly lower than that of the top pilots. Yes, I do fly in turbulence and also in the gas.
However, my comfort level is significantly lower than that of the top pilots. Yeah, then I do get a bit annoyed, but I also understand why I'm doing it, and that's why at some point it sounds, yeah, like that
is life. Have you ever been so annoyed while flying that you said, I'm quitting? Not during
flying, landing, yeah.
Yeah, okay.
Landed too early somewhere. Exactly, right. That was in 2023, there was this phase, spring or summer, where I think I crashed three times in a row, almost right after takeoff, and the others flew so far and had such beautiful flights and the weather was good and everything was perfect. But somehow, three times in a row, I made some stupid mistakes and really landed once, yeah, okay, happens twice, ah, again. And the third time I thought, well, okay, now you've unlearned everything, this is impossible. I was on the verge of selling everything, canceling my DKV, and saying, no, it can't go on like this. So really, like a mini-depression. Yeah, pretty much. Yeah, but my friends supported me and said, hey, that's just a coincidence, everything's fine.
And then it happened again, but I was able to fly a bit more and everything worked out again.
In your videos, you also sometimes show, well, not accidents, but how should I put it, mishaps or those not-so-successful flights. Where you always say, yeah, I had to land early again today and I actually wanted to fly 250 kilometers, but after 15 kilometers I got up from the saddle. Back on the ground again, and so on. What kind of reactions do you get to that?
Different. There are also pilots who just say, yeah, I see that it happens to the good ones sometimes too. So they describe me as a good pilot. And then they also have some kind of peace of mind knowing that it doesn't only happen to the "bad" pilots, so to speak, but also to experienced pilots with many flight hours. Me. There are also reactions where people just get annoyed with it. Or some who understand me and say, hey, I was in that situation too. I know how depressing it is when everyone else is flying and you're immediately on the ground.
It's a bit supportive. And that's how the community is. I really like being able to read different opinions in the comments. Also in my Telegram group. I have pilots from all over the world there, from Iran, Canada, Great Britain. So there are different pilots, different opinions. And I appreciate that the community is so diverse. Yeah, that's really great.
How often do you get hate comments or something like that where you're just like, I really don't feel like dealing with this right now?
Well, that's just part of... of public life, I guess. If you post something on social media, you almost have to assume there will be negative comments. Regardless of whether you're just showing a nice video, someone will come along and say, "Oh, there's that guy with the nice hate again." Or if you show some kind of mishap, then of course there's immediately some hate and vitriol. Yeah, I have to say, I'm a bit thick-skinned, so to speak. I don't try to take it personally at all. On the other hand, of course it annoys me when my intention with the video isn't understood at all, or maybe I just didn't place the whole video quite right.
And then you get a reaction that I didn't expect at all. And it's always a bit like, well, what do you do with the video now? Should I delete it maybe, because it's not being understood at all? Or should I somehow... justify myself in the comments or explain what I actually meant? It's difficult, but I think it's just a normal part of social media, regardless.
what you post. Yeah, I saw this spring, you were out in Colombia again. You posted some short Reels on Insta too, one of them where you go relatively close over a power line. Like, pretty close, I'd say.
And I also imagined... there are certainly people who would say, yeah, that guy is only posting that because he wants to generate views now, because it's always just before a crash or something, he gets grilled by a power line or whatever. And that's why he's posting these kinds of videos, to get attention. What do you say to that?
I think there were even comments like that under this video. If I'm not mistaken—I'll have to double-check—but probably under this one or another video. It actually happens regularly. But I can say, that is definitely not my intention; rather, I'm of the opinion that we should just be more open about mistakes. So, this issue of how we deal with mistakes in paragliding, with our own mistakes and also with the mistakes of others, I don't really like that. I always watch this channel on YouTube about... various aviation accidents in commercial aviation. There's a captain there who is also an instructor, I think, for some airline.
And he does meticulous analyses of different cases, what happened and why and so on. And there isn't a single word, even if the pilot was somehow totally bananas and did everything wrong. The real focus there is: what can we all learn from this? Or what can the communication learn? Or what can the community learn from this? But with us, it's somehow the other way around. Some mishap gets posted and then the comments come in immediately. Ah, he wants to collect views with his crash again. Or ah, he can't fly at all. Or yeah, why do you do that? Yeah, I find that a bit of a shame. I don't know if we can change that. Why do you think it's like that? Yeah, we actually can't—or we're not even allowed to—compare them at all.
We have this professional flying side. The right pilots, the right pilots are trained. They have proper training. We're just doing our hobby. We are very, very different people. And paragliding is just a hobby for us. And for many, it's not even a real occupation. We do something in nature. And because of that, for us it's just sort of, like, entertainment, more so. We might not take it so seriously. And yeah, it's like how you somehow step on a banana peel and then fall down and then, like, crashed with the paraglider. Yeah, it's sort of similar, somehow.
Do you think that could be changed? Or do you have an idea of how we could get to a point where a positive culture of learning from mistakes could somehow grow in paragliding?
That's a difficult question. There are actually some movements. There are also YouTube channels where people analyze different accidents and try to show what we can all learn from them. Yes, but the scene is really diverse. We all have to participate somehow as one big community. I don't really have a concrete proposal yet. If we suddenly start posting all our mistakes and bloopers, I think that would go in the wrong direction. It's better to proceed in a more structured way.
Exactly. How do you decide whether a mistake you've made is worth making into a video, whether for YouTube or a short video on Insta or something? What is a case for you where you'd say, "Hey, that's a mistake worth posting," so to speak?
Yes, it has to have some kind of learning effect. Just for pure entertainment, it doesn't really do anything. We should be able to learn something from every occurrence. And that's my criterion. Can you learn something from the story? Yes, I'm happy to share it. If it's just some really weird thing that happened due to some unknown or uncontrollable factors, well, what can you learn from that? Nothing. I haven't actually experienced many things where I'd say I definitely wouldn't share it. Because, well, almost everything I've experienced is already somehow public.
Is there anything you would say you definitely wouldn't share? At least as a video? Like, where you'd say, I'm not showing that now?
Yeah, well, I have to think about how to handle my last rescue attempt—what exactly I'll share from it and what I won't. Like I said, I'll decide that later. I'm still a bit unsure about that. But other than that, yeah, I really can't think of any other examples.
You have your YouTube channel, your Insta channel, and then this Telegram group, which I think has nearly 400, 500 people in it now. What function does this Telegram group serve for you? What do you want to achieve with it?
Yeah, almost 600 actually. I first just started it because I found the comment section on YouTube a bit clunky. And when I did it that way, I felt that if someone wanted to ask me about something or some questions, it was just somehow awkward. And then I thought, yeah, let's make a Telegram channel. There, people have a direct line to me and can then ask questions about my videos or routes or other things, my equipment. And that's how it started. At first, there were only a few people and more and more people joined over and over. And now there are also really interesting discussions from time to time. Like I said, it's a diverse communication. There's a community from many countries. Different things are shared there. There are also relatively, let's say, beginners, in quotation marks, so those who are just getting into paragliding.
There are also many people in there who have been around for a long time and fly well. Mostly, it's about my stories and my videos, of course, but also occasionally about various topics surrounding paragliding. Maybe opinions. On paragliders, on specific models, or on flight sites and the weather and so on. But you are
at least by the people who probably join the group, you're sort of seen as the boss of this group, I guess.
Yeah, technically I am the boss, the moderator. Of course, yeah, it's hard to say. It is a community, though. I don't think I act in any authoritarian way. No. We're all there together and discuss certain things. Do you see yourself as an influencer?
Well, honestly, not really. As an influencer, you have to influence something somehow. I don't do that at all.
Well, if you say people watch your videos and then say, "Hey, I imagined how I'd fly a route in my area and visualized it," like, "I'm imagining what a video of how Dimitri would do it would look like." So you've already influenced him. In that sense, you are an influencer. Even if you're not the product-placement influencer, you're at least, let's say, the idea-placement influencer.
Yeah, that's obviously nice. If I can really contribute to pilots being able to fly better, further, or safer, yeah, that's really cool. But I don't really have a specific motivation or goal like that.
Where do you see yourself with the XC stories in two years?
Well, I would definitely... I would definitely clear out my remaining 10 terabytes so that I can record more videos.
More videos, more stories from paragliding. Yes, stories about difficult situations. I had many low-saves, for example. There's still a video about that in the pipeline.
Yeah, just keep telling the stories. That's how I see myself in two years.
Which story would you... I mean, which XC story is your dream that you'd like to tell one day?
A dream? Yeah, I'd probably like to fly some huge triangle really safely at some point. I don't know, 300 kilometers or something. And then just make a video about it. That would be a real dream, but it's not a goal. I know that a really big triangle is also hard work. You have to fly really fast. Even on a strong day, on a turbulent day. It's not easy at all. And I have to somehow reconcile that with my risk management. It might not even be doable for me. But it would still be my dream.
The big one, maybe 300 kilometers - border - triangle or... I don't know, can you fly 300 kilometers from Speikboden?
Difficult. I think Speikboden is difficult. The border is even harder for me because I have to haul my 30-kilo... backpack up to the border.
Yeah, that's why I tried it twice at the steep saddle. That's a bit less to hike up. 400 meters of elevation, if I'm not mistaken. Yeah, the border is such an awesome flight area, but for heavy gear and for high-gun flyers who aren't that experienced, I'd say it's rather difficult.
You just have to hike up slowly the night before. Bivouac somewhere at the top so you can start the next day well-rested.
Yeah, I have a bit of a problem with that too. Everyone stays in tents and sleeping bags. I always need accommodation. I need a big bed and a hot shower.
Okay, you're the comfortable one who prefers to avoid risks. Then maybe you just have to settle for smaller goals on the XC routes. But maybe don't get upset if you flew 20 kilometers less than the others, but instead be more happy about what great videos you can make out of it.
Dimitri, thanks a lot for the great storytelling. I think that some people who might not know about this yet will enjoy watching the channel. So, XC Stories on YouTube has the long films. XC Stories on Insta is where you can find the shorter ones. And in the XC Stories Telegram group, there are some great discussions. And yeah, exchange about everything related to it. Dimitri, thanks a lot and yeah, keep up the good work. The films are really great to watch.
Thanks a lot, Lucian, for the invitation. I was happy to be here too. Yeah, I'm looking forward to the next flights, and the next videos as well. And maybe see you soon somewhere at a launch site.
Podz-Glidz is the podcast of the paraglider blog Loglights. Behind it, there is no large editorial team or advertising department, just me, Lucian Haas, as a passionate paraglider and freelance journalist. In the podcast and the blog, I combine both to keep the paragliding scene up to date on all the possible facets of this fascinating sport and hobby. And that's completely ad-free and without any paywall. From the feedback of my listeners and readers, I know that many value Loglights and Podz-Glidz as important and independent information channels. Maybe you feel the same way. For me, both are not just a passion, but also a fact. It is part of my livelihood. Unfortunately, I haven't won the lottery yet or have a fat inheritance in my account.
That's why I have to make sure that the time I put into this is rewarded with more than just intrinsic fun and kind words. And that's where you come in. If you regularly listen to Podz-Glidz and read Loglights and benefit from it, then please give something back. How much you send me as a supporter via PayPal or bank transfer is entirely up to you. You can find info and links on the site www.Lu-Glidz.blogspot.com under the "Förder" section. That's all for today. The next episode of Podz-Glidz should appear in two weeks as usual. Until then, go get up in the air yourself. Start early, land late, fly far.
But above all, have fun with it. See you soon, your Lucian.