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 press 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... Dmitry Balabanov, and I'm Lucian Haas. There are surely hundreds, if not thousands, of paragliding pilots who document all their flights with a GoPro on their helmet or an Insta360 camera on a stick. For many, it's a tool 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. Dmitry 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 learned from them. His most famous video is one in which he explains very clearly how to fly a 120-kilometer triangle in Bassano. Dmitry 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 such stimulating conversations because there are sponsors who financially support my work on the podcast and blog. Join in. You can find out how on the paragliding blog Lu-Glidz, specifically on the "Support" page.
Dmitry, 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.
Yeah, I read an interview with you where you said you have to 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 on my last flight I had to throw my rescuer out. Oh, I didn't know that now,
but that's of course a... What happened?
Yes, so I learned how to throw the rescue. I did it for the first time. What happened? I was really high and presumably 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 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? Because you said an inversion and shear and stuff like that is common when you're very high up. That means you still had a long flight left on the rescue, something like?
So no, I did try 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. Then I lost a lot of altitude and the reserve opened at maybe 200 or 150 meters above ground, and then I flew the remaining meters on the reserve. Then
but you really struggled for a long time, from 1000 meters down to 200 meters or something like that. Yeah. So, if you say you learned something from that, what's the lesson you took away?
Yeah, I actually wanted—I haven't gotten around to it yet—I wanted to write a big report for myself about everything that happened, why it happened, what I did, what the glider did. I have everything on video, so I can really analyze every second of what happened, how I reacted, but what was right and what wasn't right. And of course, I still have the day in my head and all that. So I'd first summarize the whole thing into a big report. And after that, I'll draw conclusions on how to handle it going forward. What could those consequences be? Anything. It depends on what summary I prepare. I might decide to choose a different glider because I'll come to the conclusion, right, that the rig is too hot for me.
Or maybe I can say, yeah, then I'll do SAV twice a year instead of once, or something like that. I'll have to see.
Did you land softly with the Retter below, or did you get slammed into the rocks or something? How was it? I
I was really lucky, yeah. There was a tree or two that actually caught me—me, so the rescuer and the glider. And then I landed butter-soft, just, so to speak, 50 centimeters from the ground. Got stuck there. Yeah, exactly.
Did the glider stay intact and the reserves too? Or do you have to buy a new glider anyway and are now facing that decision? What happens next?
The glider only has a few small tears and the rescuers 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. Unfortunately, the first one didn't open because that rotation had pretty low sink rates. And then it just took a long time. That first rescuer was kind of flying around me, wouldn't open, and I didn't see any point in spending time trying 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. And then you, I assume you're right-handed, pulled right first and then left, or how was it? Right, it was just like that. And when the second rescuer opened, did the first one also open, maybe because some laypeople relieved the tension or something?
No, the first one didn't come undone; 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 Dmitry.
Yeah, I'm in Bassano often, often ten or more times a year. When the weather is right, I like to fly 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 that corner before. I looked back at my IGZ track—the flight—and 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 kind of came together in a bad way. You had
but you didn't have that on your glider. So you didn't know at all that there might be slight north foehn conditions?
Yeah, I saw in the forecast that there was some north wind at altitude. But it was all in the green zone, I'd 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 rocking quite a bit and the air was somehow so mobile, and we also had a lot of east wind. And that's usually pretty unpleasant in Bassano when there's a lot of east wind.
Because it's always fluttering along the edge like that, so you probably always have a lot of these stationary rotors that you have to fly through.
Yeah, maybe so. But I also suspect that when there's this northern component, this wind from the east basically pushes into Bassano, and maybe the air is generally a bit cooler or drier. Exactly. You said you have everything on the
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, it's on YouTube, and you're also active on Insta with it. 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? Yes,
That's a good question, and I probably don't have an answer for it myself yet. I actually studied engineering with a focus on multimedia, and even back during my studies, I was already involved with video a bit—I'd cut small video clips of things I recorded. And I always enjoyed working with 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 all my flights. But just for myself. At first, I didn't want to make anything out of it, just to watch for myself what I was doing up 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 a single flight in a week, and I think I was soaring somewhere for 40 minutes. I made a 20-minute, very boring video out of it where nothing happens, because I'm just flying back and forth along the edge, left and 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 eventually, back 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 many things—the edge, the corner, and so on—and afterwards, everything worked, then I could really gain height and complete 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 try somewhere else. And this video suddenly found an audience. There were actually comments. 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 on like that.
And now you're saying you had at
you always have the camera with every one of your wings and it's always running.
Correct, exactly. I record all wings 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 in that too, because I think I have 10 terabytes of footage right now and I have to do something with it, otherwise... but my SD cards are also all full. Yeah, so I actually try to make interesting parts or interesting stories, stories, narratives out of it. Any, like, roughly standard, run-of-the-mill flights, I actually delete those afterwards. Luckily, the camera doesn't make huge files for the entire flight, but they're 30-minute segments. And 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.
Yes, 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 relive the whole thing and watch all the videos again. And watching a 10-hour flight is already really exhausting. Plus, when I'm editing, I 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 those whole ten hours again?
Not entirely, but a lot of it. For example, for my video about the Speikbodendreieck, I probably spent 80 working hours in total because I had to look at so many things. I had to play around with the graphics a bit, do research, and compile different flights. That takes a real amount of time. Are you filming with a 360-degree camera?
Yeah, exactly. I mean, that's probably even more work because you then 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? So you have to make an incredible number of decisions each time on how you're going to implement that visually.
Exactly, that's also the challenge. It's really about what 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 then I suggested a few alternative versions of how to fly certain sections, which I pulled from the other videos. I had to look those up again, of course, analyze my flights again, look at where I flew where, and then of course all the graphic work. The work with the graphics also takes a lot of time. Different valley winds and thermals and airspaces, all sorts of things. It's all very time-consuming.
I'm not a graphics pro, 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 yeah, it takes me a bit more time. I
my 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 to, and 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
I use two tools. One tool actually does the overlay stuff, like all the flight data I still show, the speed, the altitude, and so on. I do that in a separate tool for the entire flight, but the rest of the work I do in a tool called DaVinci Resolve Studio. That's a paid version. But the great thing about it is that this tool really has everything I need. I can also process the audio, add the graphics, edit the video, and adjust the color components, all sorts of things. It's really like an almighty tool for every use case. I really like it. I searched for a long time, tried many tools—paid ones, free ones, open-source versions too—and I wasn't really happy with any of them.
But that was really the first tool I actually 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 everything—I think it lasts almost 20 minutes or something—where you explain how to fly lengthwise, how you did it, what alternatives there are. How do you go about that? Do you make a kind of script beforehand where you actually write down, like you said earlier, about your emergency landing, I want to write a report on that first. So you're basically writing a kind of flight report for yourself, where your key points were and other stuff, to then see how I can tell that as a story in the video accordingly.
Actually, every video of mine is scripted. I first write down everything I want to show in the video—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. That's why, yeah, for this Speichboden video, I actually wrote everything down. We fly like this, I have to tell that; here 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, from books for example, like with the Möhl-Teil-Dreieck.
I had to ask a few friends for some input there, and for the opinions from the books, I did some research. But for most of the videos, I really mostly rely on my own experience—meaning the routes as I flew them.
What is your motivation for investing so much time into this, and ultimately so much time into the quality? It's nice to watch videos like that, of course. But when you say 80 hours for one story, that's quite a number. Other people might say, 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, or part of my hobby. Most people, or many people, just fly, and I fly and make videos about it. That's the only motivation, I think. That means you're not
...not a paraglider pilot, but a paraglider filmmaker?
Yes, I'm a pilot, I think. But also a pilot with a camera.
Do you ever fly with a story already 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'm flying for that story? Or is it always the flights as they come, and you create the story you can tell out of them afterwards?
Yeah, for me, it's the complete 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. So 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? Yeah, 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 really planned a flight for the sake of 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 a paraglider flies, how it feels—that's probably the only exception. Otherwise, when I'm just flying routes, 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?
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. Hard to say. I think the video about the Bassano triangle is probably my most well-known one. I guess. 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. So I'm really happy to hear stuff like that. Otherwise, I have another video about my big Speichbordendreieck. 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 was still circling over the peaks somewhere 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 still 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 little 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 paragliding scene. Especially with the videos I make, they are rather, let's say, boring to some extent. Because, yeah, some guy explains how to maintain certain corners and make circles somewhere, and somewhere else not anymore.
Well, who watches stuff like that? Only a specific circle of people. And that's why I think it's already impossible to get thousands of views. It's not a motivation, not a goal, and not the reason why I do it at all.
What would you say is your target audience for the videos? Do you have anyone in mind, like, who am I doing this for? Is it more for 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 about how to fly certain triangles or routes. Where are the difficult spots? Where do you have to be a bit careful and 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. But yeah, I'd just say an average, normal 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 look at your wing so intensively, because if you say, okay, after such a Speichelboden triangle I have to fly for another 10 hours, I'll somehow go through it again. You actually have the time to deal with some details a bit more intensively. Or for example, you might let something run in time-lapse and then suddenly see something in the time-lapse that you didn't see at all while flying slowly—namely the typical fixed thermals, where you always see the cloud, it's always in the same spot, it keeps growing upwards or something like that. And you can see relatively well in such 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 confirm, though, 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 happen over such a long period—they're so slow, like cloud movements or various changes in shading and so on. But I wouldn't say I've learned anything from that, because it all happens in retrospect. And then, later on a real flight, to actually come up with the idea to think about it, like "watch out, a situation like that could develop." It's difficult. So, honestly, I'm really not a super talented pilot. I'm an autonomous cross-country pilot. You shouldn't expect too much from me.
...expect. But you're a frequent flyer. One thing I've noticed is that when you start wanting to explain things to other people, like how something works. For example, you're explaining how to fly a 120-kilometer triangle in Bassano or something. Like 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 certain 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 mainly because the valley wind is hitting it or whatever. Tell me, don't you think that because you have to sort of understand these things if you want to explain them, you might approach the matter with a different system next time you're in the same spot, because you've basically already developed a model for yourself, at least mentally?
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 exactly there and all that, then 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 with other flights the same thing always happens, that all of a sudden you understand more of the background. And because of that, you might make a video like that, which is like a kind of very elaborate, but still a kind of debriefing, and what you do with that, you probably very quickly become sort of an expert for certain routes or something like that.
Yeah, I really have to think about it myself. What I can say is that I always fly by feel. I don't have a proper system for looking at how things work, how the air works. For me, it always just happens in the flow, during the flight. But I heard someone mention that they thought about what a Paragliding Existories video would look like in my flight area. And they actually visualized a video in their head and discovered certain things. That was an "aha moment" for me too. Yeah, people do put thought into it, and my videos probably also help people understand the flight areas better by imagining a video like the ones on my channel.
I was happy to hear that, 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, then a great Existory comes out of it. But I...
mine, maybe you're a systematizer who doesn't even know they're a systematizer. Maybe so. I mean, you're also, if I remember correctly, a programmer. Yes, that's right. I'm in software development. In your non-flying life. So there you 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, just a gut-feeling flyer?
Yeah, in programming, everything is really simple. There's one, there's zero, and then everything is deterministic. In the air, it looks completely different. Yeah, we can't see the air, 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 application for it, and as I said, I just fly somehow by feel. 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 it at all or come up with systems that would work in a mathematical way.
What
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? I mean, you invest an enormous amount of time. You really are
Livestock flyer. As far as I know, Dmitry is out and about again, he's already driven to Bassano or something like that. So every free minute besides your job, 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 what it's about. 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. I'm just swept away by that state of being in the air—flying a route in nature, without engine noise, circling with the eagles and the other birds in Colombia, circling together with such a huge flock of birds, that's such an experience, it's just incredibly beautiful.
What was your motivation for starting to fly in the first place? I mean, what made you do it? That
It was, I think, pure coincidence. I only moved to Germany in 2011, and before that, I was in Germany really often... Where are you originally from? I'm originally from Russia, I moved in 2011, but before that, I was often in Germany on business trips, and my colleagues and I often went on trips to the mountains or to Italy. We'd just take a rental car for the weekend, and then somewhere in the Alps at a parking lot, I looked up once and saw the paragliders. I didn't even know they were paragliders or that the thing was called a paraglider. I had no idea. Then I thought, wow, they're circling there in the air.
You probably need at least a million dollars and maybe you have to be a competitive 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: well, let's see, what were those actually? What were those people doing there? I did a quick Google search and just discovered that you don't actually need any prerequisites for a little introductory day. I booked it right away and flew myself on the first day. Yeah, of course it was only ten seconds from a 50-meter hill, but it hooked me immediately.
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 become my only hobby. I used to do a bit of private programming as well, open source. But now everything is kind of on hold 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'm doing on the weekend, where I'm going, how long I'm flying, and when I'm coming back, since I don't have a wife or kids. Well, my employer isn't always in agreement with that.
At least I still have that great freedom. And so far, I haven't had my fill, let's just say. I mean, I want to keep flying. You're
did you ever get stuck somewhere in the wrong spot during a long cross-country flight, so you didn't get back in time and then 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, 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, what would you say, how ambitious are you? Yes,
That's a special question for me. I really have no motivation to set any records or to 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 like that. It's like a balance between ambition and reason, I don't know, maybe something like that. What does reason say? Well, 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, fly thousands of hours a year—maybe only then would it 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 maintain, when I maintain, for how long, and so on. That's why I think this risk management is simply not compatible with all those top performances.
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.
So, the Swiss cheese model,
just so people can visualize it correctly. It's about a cheese that has holes in it.
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 safety layers that might be there—because then you might fall into that hole, and in the end, that might not 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 you. For example, one cheese slice could be, if it gets really turbulent, I take my foot off the gas and just fly with my hand on the brake. And then I'm slower, 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 two-liners.
Yeah. Yeah,
And of course, you can steer very nicely with the rear risers and also plow through at least half of the turbulence in the gas. 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 bumps a bit harder, even if I'm flying my two-liner, I'd rather get out of the gas and play it safe. Yes,
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. When many top pilots simply stay in the gas, I'll exit earlier and switch to the brake. Like I said, that's my safety—or risk management. Yes, I've set up a system like that and I continue to do so. Of course, with a two-liner, you have to steer with the rear risers and control the angle of attack in accelerated flight, and I do that too. I practice that as well, and in SIV training anyway. But as I said, blasting through real, strong turbulence at full throttle is not my style.
Could it be that because you make these kinds of videos and celebrate successes with them—meaning you don't have to prove anything with XC points or act all impressive in the scene, but you can show videos that lots of people watch and say, "Hey, that was a great video," and that basically strokes your ego—is that maybe something that even contributes to you saying, "I'm perhaps less risk-tolerant because of that"?
No, I wouldn't say that. I'm generally on the cautious side, no matter what I do. Whether I'm cycling or doing something where I'm out and about, I don't know, in nature, like a ridge walk, I go slowly there too. And that's just my trait. If you
Since you're so risk-averse in a way, has it ever happened that you get annoyed about it? Like, for example, I know, to do a really big flight—so you go to Colombia every spring, and for really big flights in Colombia, you sometimes have to fly deep into some weird valleys that are just made of rainforest, and you know there's nothing to land on down there. There might be a relatively safe thermal somewhere in the back that you could turn out of, but you have to hit it. I might not dare do that, so I don't fly in there. But I'm taking away the option of maybe squeezing out another 20 kilometers from some triangle. Is it something where you sometimes land and say, "Ah, shit, why am I such a chicken? Why didn't I dare do that?"
Who told you that example? Because that's exactly what I was trying to say. In Colombia, if you want to fly a 200-kilometer triangle, you actually have to fly deep into the jungle twice, where it might still work thermally, but there's absolutely nothing there in terms of a landing field. And it worked for those people every time, and they were happy. Later, at the landing field, they'd say, "Yeah, 200 done, okay." But my risk management says, no, you don't fly in there. Even though I'd like to, I have this, yeah, this uneasy feeling, yeah, I don't like that, and so I don't do it.
But you don't get angry? Yes, I do get angry, because I flew with those people the whole way and we were together, and then they were suddenly in that stupid spot for a moment and then they all went back, and then we keep flying together and they have more kilometers. And then you do get angry? Yes, then I do get a bit angry, but I also understand why I'm doing it and that's why eventually, yeah, it sounds like, so
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. Right, that was in 2023, there was this phase, spring or summer, where I think I stalled out almost immediately after takeoff three times in a row, while 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 actually landed once—yeah, okay, happens twice, again. And the third time I thought, well, okay, now you've forgotten everything, this is impossible. I was on the verge of selling everything, canceling my DKV, and saying, no, I can't go on like this. So it was really like a mini-depression, so to speak. But my friends supported me and said, hey, that's just a coincidence, everything's fine.
And then it happened again, I was able to fly a bit more and everything worked out again.
In your videos, you especially show those, 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 was already back on the ground from the saddle, and so on. What kind of reactions do you get to that?
There are also different ones. There are pilots who simply 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 peace of mind that it doesn't only happen to the "bad" pilots, in quotes, but also to the experienced pilots with many flight hours, like for example me. There are also reactions where people just get angry with me. They also understand me and say, I was also in this situation, I know how depressing it is that everyone else is flying and you're immediately on the ground.
That's a bit supportive. And that's how the community is. I really like being able to read different opinions in the comments, even in my Telegram group. I have pilots from all over the world there, from Iran, Canada, Great Britain. Different pilots, different opinions, and I appreciate that the community is so diverse. Yeah, that's really great. How
You often get hate comments where you're like, "I really don't feel like dealing with this right now," right?
Well, that's just sort of part of being in the public eye. If you post something on social media, you pretty much 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, that video made me so angry." 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 the whole thing 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 didn't place the whole video quite correctly.
And then you get a reaction that I didn't expect at all. 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 that's just a normal part of social media, regardless.
what you post. Yeah, I saw this spring, you were in Colombia again, and you posted some short Reels on Insta, one of them where you go relatively close over a power line. Like, pretty close, I'd say.
and I imagine 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 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 believe 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 a YouTube channel about various aviation accidents in the big leagues. There's a flight captain there, who I think is also an instructor 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 community learn from it. With us, it's somehow the other way around. Some mishap gets posted and then the comments come in immediately: he wants to collect views with crashes again, or he can't fly at all, or why is he doing that. 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? Well, we can actually—or we're not even allowed to compare it—this professional flying, where pilots, the right pilots, are trained, they have proper training.
We're just doing our hobby. We're 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, so for us, it's more like a form of entertainment. We might not take it so seriously. And it's like stepping on a banana peel and falling down, and then crashing with the paraglider. Yeah, something like that.
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 the paragliding scene?
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.
How do you decide whether to take a mistake you've made and turn it into a video, whether for YouTube or a short video on Insta or something like that? What is a case for you where you say, "Hey, that's a mistake that's 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 event. And that's my criterion. Can you learn something from the story? Yes, I'm happy to share it. If it's just some weird thing that happened because of 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. 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 also have to think about how to handle my last rescue attempt, what exactly I'll share from that and what I won't. Like I said, I'll decide that later. I'm still a bit unsure about that. But otherwise, I really can't think of any other example right now.
You have your YouTube channel, you have your Insta channel, and you have this Telegram group, where I think there are just under 500 people in there now. What function does this Telegram group serve for you? What do you want to achieve with it? Yes,
It's actually almost 600. I first started it simply because I found the comment section on YouTube a bit clunky. And if someone wanted to ask me some questions, I just found it somehow awkward. So then I thought, let's make a Telegram channel; there, people have a direct line to me and can then ask questions about my videos, 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 again. And now there are also really interesting discussions from time to time. Like I said, it's a diverse community from many countries. Different things are shared there. They are also relatively beginners, in quotes, 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, my videos, but also every now and then about various topics surrounding paragliding, maybe opinions on paragliders, specific models, or 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's really a community. I don't think I act in any way authoritative. We're more all there together and discuss certain things. Do you see yourself as an influencer? Well, honestly, no. As an influencer, I'd have to influence something somehow. I don't do that at all. Well,
when you say people watch your videos and then say, "Hey, I imagined how I'd fly a route in my area and I pictured it, I'm imagining it like a video of how Dmitry would do it," you've already influenced them. So in that sense, you are an influencer—maybe not the product placement influencer, but at least the idea placement influencer. Yeah,
That's of course nice, if I can really contribute to pilots being able to fly better, more beautifully, or more safely. Yeah, that's really cool, but I don't really have that kind of motivation or goal.
Where do you see yourself with the XC stories in two years?
Well, I'd definitely have to clear out my 10 terabytes first so that I can record more videos.
More videos, more stories from paragliding. Stories about difficult situations. I had many low-saves, for example, and there's still a video about that in the pipeline.
Just keep telling the stories. That's how I see myself in two years.
Which story would you—which XC story is your dream that you'd love to tell one day?
A dream? Yeah, I'd probably like to fly a massive triangle, like, 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, 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, a triangle or I don't know, can you fly 300 kilometers from Speikboden?
Difficult. Speichboden, I think, is difficult. The border is even harder for me because I have to haul my 30-kilo backpack up there to the border.
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, Grente is such an awesome flight area, but for heavy gear and for less experienced high-gun flyers like me, it's rather difficult.
You just have to hike up slowly the evening before, bivouac somewhere at the top, and then be able to launch the next day after getting some rest.
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 likes to travel in a risk-averse way. Then maybe you just have to settle for smaller goals at the XC sites. But maybe don't get upset about flying 20 kilometers less than the others. Instead, be more happy about what great videos you can make out of it.
Dmitry, thanks so much 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 is where the long films are. XC-Stories on Insta is where you can find the shorter ones. And in the XC-Stories Telegram group, there are also some great discussions and exchanges regarding everything. Dmitry, thank you very much and 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. 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 Loglites. There's no big editorial team or advertising department behind it, 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 different 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 Lu-Glidz and Podz-Glidz as important and independent information channels. Maybe you do too. For me, both are not just a passion, but also part of my livelihood. Unfortunately, I haven't won the lottery yet or have a fat inheritance in my account. So, I still 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, read Lu-Glidz, 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 all the necessary information and links on the site www.Lu-Glidz.blogspot.com under the "Förder" section. That's it for today. The next episode of Podz-Glidz should appear in 2 weeks as usual. Until then, go get back up in the air yourself. Start early, land late, fly far. But above all, have fun. See you soon, your Lucian.