I'm a bit of a brand for that. I told a seasoned pilot in my community back then about my first 10-kilometer flight, and I told him with all this pride and euphoria, "10 kilometers, that's not a cross-country flight." And that bothered me for days. And I think that mutual reaction is exactly right. Not staged, not forced, but it's great. It's awesome. And it's something we maybe do far too rarely.
Podz-Glidz, the Lu-Glidz podcast. Stories from the cosmos of paragliding. Today with Robert
Kubin. And
I'm Lucian Haas.
Anyone who subscribes to Thermik magazine and looks at the masthead will find Robert Kubin listed as Managing Director of Marketing and Advertising, alongside publisher Norbert Apresnik. Even though that is certainly an important role for the magazine to remain competitive in the market, Robert plays a much more influential role in the paraglider scene elsewhere. For nearly five years, he has been publishing an online column every Friday called Freitagsthermik. You can subscribe to it as an email newsletter or follow it via the Thermik magazine Facebook account. What Robert delivers there is unique and valuable in its own way. In short essays, he reflects on the various conscious and unconscious ways of thinking and acting among paraglider pilots.
He asks provocative questions, describes curious observations at launch sites, tells stories of his own flying blunders and doubts, and thus constantly holds a mirror up to his readers. In doing so, he prompts thoughts about the why, the how, and with what goal we actually take to the air. In this episode 191 of Podz-Glidz, I'm speaking with Robert Kubin. In this episode 191 of Podz-Glidz, I'm speaking with Robert Kubin. Robert Kubin doesn't just talk to the paraglider scene about his intentions with Freitagsthermik. It's also about the question of how, by constantly dealing with flying on a meta-level, he has become a different, in a literal sense more self-confident pilot. Another topic is Thermik's digital strategy. Robert tells us how the publisher, alongside the magazine, which has only appeared online since the beginning of the year,
...will build a broader online platform for the paragliding scene with additional offerings. By the way, I can only present these behind-the-scenes conversations because there are supporters who financially support my work on the podcast and blog. Join in! You can find out how on the Podz-Glidz Gleitschirm-Blog, specifically on the "Fördern" page.
Robert, to what extent do you feel like a flight philosopher? That
is a good starting point. Less of a philosopher, but I'd say more of a pilot coach. And not a coach in the sense of a consultant, but someone who perhaps asks unusual, provocative questions and wants to stimulate reflection.
When this podcast episode comes out, your 570th episode—that's what it should be according to my count—Freitags Thermik will probably be released at the same time. And Freitags Thermik is basically every Friday you deliver, I'd say, a short essay about flying where you always pick up on interesting topics. When you started this project, I mean 570 short essays, that's quite a lot. What did you expect? Did you think you could keep at it for that long?
Okay, I have to mention that first. The project wasn't started by me.
The first
Freitags Thermik was actually the idea of and was started by Franz Altmann. Actually, it's Franz Hudler, he got married and changed his name. And he ran Freitags Thermik until issue, I think, 260, 270 or so. So about half of what we have today. A bit less than half. Yes, exactly. And his idea back then was to deliver a little kick, a boost of motivation at the end of the week, at the beginning of the weekend, to go flying, maybe just to get people in the mood, to maybe overcome the inner pig of doubt to head out to a flying area. He is also a very, very passionate hike-and-fly pilot and ran it over more than 270 episodes.
However, as is often the case with someone who commits to such a regular publication—and I'm sure you know a thing or two about that—there's a pretty big potential that over time the motivation might fade a bit, or that you might eventually run out of content. And that was the case with Franz, who is our test pilot and also an editor. But as far as Freitagsthermik is concerned, yes, there were irregular Friday thermals towards the end, sometimes they were published on Saturday. And it was actually foreseeable that Freitagsthermik could be heading towards an end. And that was roughly the time when I started working at the Thermik Verlag and joined the team.
And we had about 5,000 subscribers for Freitagsthermik back then. And I thought to myself at the time, 5,000 subscribers, that's not nothing, that's quite a lot. And I wouldn't want to let that slip away. So we also thought about it internally: what can we do with this Freitagsthermik? How can we perhaps structure it differently? And in the process, a realignment came about that didn't just work with, perhaps, beautiful narratives or simple motivational kicks, but one that asks deeper, sometimes thought-provoking questions. Like during a hike and fly, for example, during the ascent, where I as a pilot can also reflect on things.
Maybe even unusual questions, unsettling, or even provocative ones. I always titled it "guaranteed subjective." And with that, I just wanted to provide some thoughts, some nudges, to get people thinking about their own flying activity, to maybe think a bit more about their own motivation, and to deal with flying as such—something that goes beyond what you might discuss at the launch site, at the landing beer, or with the innkeeper afterwards.
Do you still know which number you started with? When did you take over?
I can't tell you exactly at the moment, I think it was around 270.
Do you still remember what your first topic was back then, the one you took over?
Oh, I can't tell you that right now, no. I'd really have to look it up.
But this intention, to look at the paragliding scene with this, let's say, critical—well, maybe "critical" in quotation marks—but with a certain meta-perspective, this intention comes mainly from you. You brought that in?
Yes, I might have to go back a bit there. About 16 years ago, I did a very comprehensive, intensive coaching training at an academy in Vienna to become a systemic coach. It was never my goal there to actually become an active coach, an active business coach, but I found interest in the methodology of how coaching works. For me, it was more a form of self-reflection and also self-discovery. And to explain, coaching is commonly misinterpreted as something...
...a specific type of consulting. But there is a huge difference between a consultant and a coach. A consultant is someone who, based on a task, an interlocutor, and their expertise or training, explains how something works, how to achieve goals, and what needs to be done. A coach does exactly the opposite. A coach sits down with an interlocutor—referred to as a coachee, or someone being coached—and mostly asks them about their goals first. What do they want to achieve? Where do they want to go? Or what do they want to obtain? What do they want to change? And the assumption in coaching is that both the definition of the goal...
as well as the solution in coaching—meaning the coach doesn't tell them how to do it, but the coachee actually has it inside them, they just can't answer it for themselves. For various reasons. Because they are simply trapped in their worldview and life circumstances, because they are oriented in a certain way, because they live by principles that also have to do with their environment. And this coaching is a very interesting approach, namely by having someone neutral, an outsider, who actually breaks down these framework conditions just through questioning and thereby stimulates reflection. And this exact approach is so interesting to me in the aviation scene, so to get back to your question now.
Because we have many in the aviation scene, let's just say,
...to the basic ideas and principles. Just think about one question, or rather the one I'd like to mention first, which is when it comes to upgrading your glider. Which glider class do I fly? And I believe it's undisputed that many pilots define their personality and themselves by the glider they fly. So it's not that they need the performance, they mainly fly accelerated, they fly hundreds of kilometers of distance, but they define themselves as: I'm a C-pilot, I'm a B-pilot, or a D-pilot, or a two-liner pilot. And for a pilot to take a moment to deal with this question—is this what I want? Does this lead me to a goal?
And what actually is the goal?
This question is also posed, for example, by Paul Guschlbauer in his book—which you've already discussed on the podcast—with the Wanderbird strategy.
What is actually the reason why you go flying? What is your core motivation for going flying at all? And is it then that specific glider or that glider class that helps me actually achieve this goal? And of course, there aren't just goals in there that might be or have to be of a sporting nature, like, I don't know, flying a 300-kilometer distance, but very personal reasons can also be revealed there that you might not be able to answer through your own questioning. Namely, what is my place in my circle of friends, in my club, in my social topography? What role do I take on there? How do I want to be perceived? And with such questions, which I also formulate in the Freitagsthermik,
I want to at least scratch the surface of these core beliefs, break them down, and lead people into those specific thoughts.
If you look at it from a coaching perspective, as you describe it, a classic coach would sit down with their coachee and try to use these questions to, let's say, evoke a resonance in the other person, so that maybe new ideas start to vibrate or the reflection takes place accordingly. But what actually happens is that the coach—not the coachee, but the coach—stays on it, in the sense of asking a follow-up question or noticing, okay, that side is vibrating now, so I'll tug at it a bit more with the next question and see what kind of chord can come out of that, or something like that. You obviously can't do that with this column. You're basically just putting in a question impulse or a thematic impulse somewhere, throwing it into the scene, so to speak, in writing,
but you don't get anything back directly where you can say, okay, I can start there and pull at that thread a bit more, or something like that. Do you miss that sometimes?
I clearly lack that. I also have to say, I'm fully aware that this isn't a coaching process. That starts right at the beginning, because a coaching session actually begins with the question of where it's supposed to go, what the goal is. And of course, I don't know the goals of the people reading the Freitagsthermik—the pilots—who are as diverse as the number of pilots who read it. I don't know these goals and therefore can't carry out a coaching process. But I'm really only interested in this intervention. Just stimulating that train of thought once. If we actually find further interest in this process, then they will probably look for others or exchange ideas with others, maybe even exchange with a coach and say, what are my goals and what can we work on?
to achieve them. But it's not about actually carrying out this coaching process. As I said, it's about what I do—and I don't just do this in the Freitagsthermik, but sometimes also at the launch site when we're doing paragliding—approaching things with questions. Yes, as I said, sometimes even disturbing questions. By disturbing, I mean that as a reaction to the Freitagsthermik, but also at the launch site without any provocation, there are pilots who say, "That's nonsense," or "That doesn't stink at all," or "That's none of your business." Maybe it's none of my business either. But the question itself is so interesting. And at the latest, the reaction—even if it's a defensive one—is a reaction. And I love that.
You love
it. If you take a look back at your work, if you took over at 270, that's probably already five years of Friday thermals you're writing now. If you recap the topics you've picked up there, which ones were the most controversial, where you noticed, "Wow, I really hit a nerve there"? I get an incredible amount of emails about those, or comments on Facebook, or whatever channels that feedback comes back to you through. There are certainly some episodes where you hardly get any response, and others where a lot comes in. Do you remember what actually really hit a nerve, where you'd say, "Hey, that was probably the right question"?
So,
where it regularly gets a lot of responses, and by responses, I mean we also share the Friday thermals on Facebook, on the Thermit Magazine Facebook page. In that sense, there's the option to comment, but we also receive very, very many responses via email. Actually, the vast majority are written back by email. Most reactions occur when it comes to the performance aspect, and there are two variations. One is regarding material, especially when it comes to gliders. So the question, I'll put it this way, one aspect is whether two-liners are now more of a definition of personality or if it's really something that is flown by the pilots.
Is this a trend that actually has a sporting necessity, or do many pilots define themselves by it? There's a lot of feedback, namely one side that says quite vehemently,
in the form of Friday thermals, or maybe other people want to badmouth this development, prevent it, or maybe try to put it in a bad light somehow. But there are very, very many reactions that also confirm this, saying, quite specifically, I don't follow this trend. I'm totally happy because I was on High B and I'm back on High A. And I feel validated by that, and finally someone is standing up here and saying that's great and it has a reason to exist, and I feel really comfortable with that. So it's about glider material, but also the performance aspects I'm addressing when it comes to competition, for example. Even here, I'm not a critic when it comes to competition.
However, yes, through the questions I'm raising, I also want to say that we know how interested the pilot community actually is regarding competition. And I'm not just talking about a Red Bull, which might have the corresponding reach, but how many people are actually interested in a PWC or other competitions. How many follow them? How many are excited about them? Is this something that actually has a reach within the pilot community? And here, too, I'm getting very controversial feedback.
Would you say the paragliding scene in general is divided in that regard? Like, there are the performance-oriented, performance-obsessed, performance-focused flyers, and then there are the hobby pilots who basically say, I just want to get into the air for a bit. And sure, they're always caught up in this circle of discussion about ABC and whether it's a two-liner or not and stuff like that. Of course, that affects them, but actually, they'd prefer to leave that behind or say, I don't even need that, to be honest with myself. I just want to do my after-work flight, or I'm happy if I've spent an hour wandering around the local mountain and did two launches, and then I'm already happy and I don't really need anything more, if I'm honest with myself.
And that we really have something like two parallel scenes that then come together as the overall paragliding scene.
So I wouldn't see a split or two camps right now, but there really is a wide range. And maybe that range is actually as large as the number of pilots who read this or perhaps start thinking about things because of my questions. At least I see it in the feedback. Of course, I don't want to say extremes, but there are camps that strongly represent one end or the other of the spectrum. But there is also a lot of feedback saying, I basically agree with you, but in the following aspect, I see it differently, which means they're moving somewhere in a middle ground, so to speak. I like this range enormously because I am firmly convinced that, especially with a sport and a hobby like paragliding, there is a very individual expression,
how I practice it, what I get out of it, what my motivation is, how I live it out, and how I'm allowed to live it out—that is very, very important. I view it with a critical eye when there is a kind of camp formation. I occasionally experience this at launch sites, where I see certain dynamics, perhaps coming from clubs, sometimes also from communities, where the heroes of the launch site—so to speak—are the ones who are enormously performance-oriented, who argue and stage themselves there and let themselves be celebrated, and then those who maybe only fly the local mountain or who simply say, I don't really feel comfortable in the thermals either, and I never wanted to, I just wanted to fly down,
who then almost feel, I mean, ashamed and with a dejected attitude
...distance yourself from this kind of discussion. And I think that this range of options is valid and should be allowed to exist, without only those who celebrate the long cross-country flights being the heroes here.
Would you say, from your observations, that every launch site has its own pilot community, with its own pilot ethos or whatever you want to call it, that it lives by? And there are basically the performance-oriented launch sites, where you meet the typical types, and if you show up there as a beginner, you just have to sit there in awe and think, oh my god, what is going on here? And then there are the other launch sites, where it might be much more collegial from the start, much more relaxed, much less performance-oriented; everyone just wants to go for a nice flight and is happy for everyone else, without having to discuss long XC points or whatever else first. And what have you seen—what I saw recently, and other things—that this really also applies to launch sites, and that you should actually categorize launch sites by that, not like, what's a good XC launch site to get into the air early, but where can I also particularly
...about the vibe—where can I launch in a relaxed way, and where is it perhaps more of a performance-oriented launch site?
I do think that exists, so less with Hike and Fly of course, if someone is out alone or in a small group, then it's less prevalent, but yes, I do think there are such—let's call them—orientations, because not every day is the same and it's not the same pilots there every day, but there are certainly such orientations and to put it plainly, to say it clearly again at this point, it's not about the fact that those—let's call them the performance-oriented pilots—especially those who fly long distances and define themselves by that, would have, how shall I put it, a bad influence, not at all. I'm saying it again, I love the range there, but it's also a bit about...
to perhaps once again provide context regarding Friday thermals, through these questions, through these interventions, and also through my personal statements that I make in there, to give the ground, the encouragement to those who don't enjoy this performance orientation or don't pursue it: what you're doing is great, do it, live it out, if that is your flight goal and that is what you say after landing, "that was extremely cool, that gives me so much for my life and for what I want to achieve."
then it's exactly right. I want to give that impulse to someone who maybe only has one glide, doesn't land and get annoyed saying everyone else is still in the air and that's actually where I belong.
By writing about it like this for five years now, and by constantly forcing yourself to take on a sort of observer role regarding the paraglider scene as well—because you always have to find your topics, you have to say, okay, where am I looking this week and so on—has your perspective on the paraglider scene changed because of that over these five years?
I'd say yes, for two reasons. The first reason might be related to that coaching training I mentioned earlier.
When you engage with this methodology and this coaching, you naturally start to observe with a more focused gaze. Then, a launch site group dynamic that might arise there also raises questions for me. Who is moving where? In what groupings is this happening? What questions and what statements are being made there? And yes, I might be someone who really enjoys observing that. I love these dynamics. For me, it's much better than, let's say, watching TV or other pastimes, because it's simply real life.
Does it ever happen that you get to a launch site and don't take off because the launch site dynamics among the pilots are so interesting that you say, I'll stay for another half hour. The conditions look good, but I find what's happening here right now so interesting, I just want to listen some more.
Yes, although I don't just listen, I also get into conversations with many pilots. However, yeah, it can be that it keeps me there, and that the conversations are just so interesting or provide me with aspects that are simply exciting, which I hadn't heard before. And that might also be this second point I wanted to mention. It might sound very selfish now, but from the Friday thermals and from these conversations, new ideas emerge that give me food for thought and prompt me to think again, and also help me reflect on aspects of flying, my motivation, and various behaviors that I might have, for example, how is it with my performance-oriented thinking?
How is it with my position in the social topography and my circle of friends? Are there ways I might fall into behaviors where I think to myself, was that really necessary or meaningful, or did it actually move me forward? And that's why I love these conversations with the feedback about myself.
Would you say that this Friday thermals column has basically made you a different pilot yourself? Yes, I definitely would. Not just,
clearly, you're always developing in some way, and flying as such has also strongly shaped my personality. But also the Friday thermals as a kind of self-therapy
or self-reflection has also had a strong influence on me.
Can you elaborate on that a bit? I mean, are there points where you can describe how you might have been a different pilot five years ago, or made different decisions, where you'd say that really changed because I've also thought about it a lot and exchanged ideas with other people, and that I see it differently today? So, there's one point that immediately comes to mind...
comes to mind, and I mentioned this before, it's about this performance concept with the gliders and the class of gliders.
About three years ago, when this C2-liner topic came up, I wasn't just highly interested in what it actually is that distinguishes these two-liners—this often-quoted two-liner feeling. What is it really? And I absolutely wanted to experience it, I was curious about it, but it already... and I then got one of the first two-liner gliders and flew it for a long time, and I enjoyed it, when other pilots back then—because everything was new—came up to me and asked me what it's like, what you're experiencing, and if it's really dangerous.
...or not? And have you had any wild experiences with it? I mean, you eventually end up in a position that, I don't want to say, flatters you, but still moves to the center and is something you could perhaps enjoy. And I realized for myself, also through conversations and feedback and also through Freitagsthermik, by dealing with the topic very intensively—not the idea of performance as such, but is this what I want? Does this move me forward? Does it move me toward my goals or my ideas of flying? And I gained the realization for myself: it's not. Definitely not.
I love being placed in the Low-C class somewhere, and I love the feelings in this class right away, but at the end of the day, for me personally, this Two-Liner-C flying has had an impact because I said, well, that's not it for me. That's not the flying that actually moves me forward; it maybe causes me a bit more stress than feelings of happiness. And that was one of the processes that was, of course, also triggered by the feedback from the Friday thermals, where pilots, in their diversity of feedback, gave me their insights and their positions on it, which triggered my thinking once again.
So you're not flying a two-liner C today? No. But you're still flying a Low-C, so a three-liner C again?
A three-liner, yeah, exactly, again.
Why is that? I mean, lately I've been looking into reflex profiles and stuff again more intensely. And I've talked to different manufacturers about it, and they all basically say that two-liners as such aren't fundamentally more dangerous or risky; rather, the risk always comes from the fact that because of their profile—since they typically have a stronger reflex—they're simply more stable. In many turbulences, they just pull their nose up and float back up like that, so nothing actually happens, which can tempt you to fly faster or stay on the gas longer when it gets turbulent.
You then rely on that, and if you actually get a collapse from this high-acceleration state, it's much more intense because there's so much more energy in the system. And they say that if you actually flew a two-liner the way you'd fly a Blue-C three-liner or something else, saying, "I just won't accelerate as much," then you'd actually be safer in the end and all that. Don't you see it that way? Or is it maybe just a matter of mindset, where you'd say, "Hey, I'm 'upgrading' in quotes, taking a two-liner, but I'm not flying it at all in that extreme way that I'd hit the points where it might become more critical," and with that, I might actually have a safer glider in the end?
I'd like to be more nuanced about it.
answer. The question of whether a glider is now risky or dangerous and how it reacts depends, for me, 100 percent on the pilot. When I have conversations with our test pilots, like Franz Seiler for example, who is a really great pilot and uses every free minute to fly very intensively and has been established for years in high-performance wings, D-wings, and two-liners, I would like to claim that his muscle memory and his entire experience are set up in such a way that he can handle these gliders in the best possible way.
In that sense, a C-2 liner or a D-2 liner in the hands of Franz Seiler will probably be much less dangerous than many gliders with another pilot who might have less experience or perhaps deals with this subject matter less. And for me personally, the reason was this: I think I felt what this 2-liner topic is all about with that 2-liner. It's direct, it's certainly nice to fly, that's fun too. I discovered for myself that regarding the descent methods, there are simply limitations that I might miss, but when I looked into it intensively, I wanted to know: do I really want to put up with that?
Is it worth it? And the second question is, I do enjoy flying XC, but I'm talking about 100, 150 kilometers; I don't fly any further than that. Do I really need to be constantly in the gas to fly maybe 200, 250, 300? No, that's not the case. And in that sense, I have to ask myself, is it worth it? Is it necessary? And I believe that with the ambitions I have and the feeling that I want to feel more comfortable and better off in this low-CHB range, and perhaps have more safety aspects available, and the—let's call them—inconveniences that might exist with the C2-Liner, I don't have to take those on.
To get into some of the topics from your Friday thermals, you have the 552, which maybe connects a bit to this, you took up a theme, the title was Burnt Out Pilots. And to summarize it very briefly in one sentence, you also wrote that when vertical starters give up flying again—so they make enormous progress, maybe climb very quickly into the storm classes, and then suddenly they're gone. Is that something you would say, because they've simply overextended themselves regarding the glider class, that this is an effect that happens very often and that's why some pilots who stand out as vertical starters at the launch sites suddenly just disappear?
I believe that here, the question of the glider and the glider class and the progression through the glider classes is only one aspect. The central point of this Friday thermals was the following. I think every pilot can relate, at least I can say it for myself, that we have always strived, since our training days,
to experience progress as quickly as possible. That starts already with basic training, at the flight school where I was trained, where there's a lower practice slope and an upper practice slope, and if you're on the lower practice slope on the first day or the first two days, then the pilots who are already on the upper practice slope are the big kids, and you wish, I can finally go up there. The goal there is definitely to get to the upper practice slope, and when you're on the upper practice slope, you can already see the high-performance gliders flying over you and think, I absolutely want to get up there and I want to as soon as possible, and it feels like a celebration when the flight instructor gives you the okay, you're allowed to go up now, we're doing high-performance flights.
So everyone is striving to make real progress and move forward as quickly as possible, and with that, of course, to project a bit of the trait to the outside world: I am a talented pilot. Who would like to be untalented, having to do every exercise again or spending a third day on the lower practice slope because the glider still isn't inflating properly?
This drive continues even when you're flying independently, when you want to be the first one to go over 3,000 meters, the first one to fly a 10-kilometer circuit, or the one who flies over to the neighboring mountain. Not just because of the experience itself, but also because of the admiring looks from those who might have been in the same training and haven't done the 10-kilometer flight yet, or haven't gone over 3,000 meters. And it just keeps going. And I think there are pilots here who are naturally talented, whatever "talented" is supposed to mean now,
...are talented, who are sometimes perhaps even brazen because they simply dare and say, I'm just going to fly away now, or I have fewer concerns, who just run the risk of hitting a ceiling in a short amount of time where this development no longer continues. But if you're already in such a dynamic and developing so quickly and then suddenly such a ceiling appears, then it hurts twice or three times as much. Yes, it hurts the pilot because he's somehow now asking himself, why isn't it going any further? It hurts when the questioning looks all around the launch site say, yeah, but nothing is happening with them anymore either, yeah, nothing bigger anymore.
And I've experienced several flying careers where people flew less and less and maybe even stopped altogether. And that's why I love the opposite, because every tiny bit of progress—if I fly 10 kilometers today and then do an 11-kilometer flight next week—every tiny bit of development is beautiful and deserves to be celebrated. It doesn't have to be a 50-kilometer flight after the 10-kilometer one, and then immediately a 100-kilometer flight. Of course, you can tell new pilots a hundred times to take your time, enjoy it, enjoy your flying career as it unfolds. But I know from my own development, of course, that the desire to develop as quickly as possible, to be considered a talented pilot and to move forward, is deeply rooted in everyone.
Do we as pilots perhaps set ourselves the wrong goals in the end? For example, these kilometer goals you mentioned—10, 50, 100—then you say, now I want to do 150. I once had a friend who worked towards the 100-kilometer mark for a long time, and then he eventually had it in the bag and was, in a sense, aimless for a while. He was really like, yeah, what do I actually want to do when I fly now? And he couldn't imagine it for himself; even from where he lived, it wasn't necessarily like, now I'll just easily go for the 200-kilometer one, because you don't get to fly that often for the long distances. Rather, you say a 100-kilometer flight was already a lot for him and he'd say, now I've basically reached my goal for my flying career.
He thought about what else he absolutely wanted to achieve, but he had achieved it and was, yeah, aimless and also a bit demotivated by it. So maybe we're setting ourselves the wrong goals, where you can say you'll reach them eventually and then we lack the motivation. Shouldn't we set different goals, ones that you can never actually reach, but where you can only say you can get better? Like being a better starter or a much better thermal, where you can never say, "Now I can do thermals," because of course every thermal is different and you have to work towards that goal again for every thermal. How do you see that? Let me pick up again what I...
I've mentioned before, and yes, where Paul Gustenbauer also got involved. In his book, he asks the question of what the actual goal is. Why do I actually go flying? I don't think something like flying 50 or 100 kilometers for the first time is the actual goal. That's not the driving force a pilot has, why they go flying, why they accept a journey of an hour or more and the cross-country connections. It's actually about the underlying, very personal goal. What is it that I actually want to experience? Yes, what is it that actually drives me? And making this goal conscious, when I know that it is this,
for me, for example, it's this wonderful feeling that I can go up a mountain during a hike and fly, and that I don't have to hike back down. For as long as I can remember, I've climbed many...
...every year I've climbed mountains. The descent was actually always a nightmare for me and it exhausted me extremely, and I never wanted that. And I actually think to myself during every flight, even in late autumn and winter, I think to myself, if it only takes five minutes, how lucky I am that I can fly down.
How great it is to have that feeling of having a descent aid. For me, cross-country flying is more like a bonus. And by being able to reach this goal with every flight, it's not something I can just tick off a bucket list under the motto "I climbed up once, I flew down once," but rather something I can experience over and over again. But this question of the goal, everyone probably has to answer for themselves. And if it actually turns out that someone says, "I just want to fly 100 kilometers once, I want to know what that's like. The landscape experience and, I don't know, the challenge. And then coming back. And that's what I want to experience." And that's it then. Well, maybe it actually is the case that the person then says, "Goal achieved."
What was it about my aviation career? I've experienced that often with Tannenfliegen. I have the Tannen training and have flown with several passengers. I've had some passengers who said, I wanted to experience that once. I've experienced it now. It was great. Thanks. But that was it for them. And that's allowed. But as I said, I think everyone has to think about their goals. And I believe you're talking about the wrong goals.
If you really listen to yourself, if you react to questions like those that I might pose through the Freitagsthermie, or that you often convey or raise in your podcast, or your guests—when I deal with that—then I think I get closer and closer to this answer. What are my very personal goals? What drives me? What are my motivations? What do I actually want? And I also think that there are many pilots who start flying who, over time and due to such questions, realize, okay, this just isn't it.
Or it's just not worth it for me. I actually have other goals in my life.
If you've already written well over 200 of these columns, aren't you starting to run out of topics? Actually, no.
Every launch site, every time I listen into the community, it immediately gives me new aspects. And there's no such thing as a list of topics; rather, there are different aspects within every topic. I sometimes even pose questions in a Friday therapy session that I've raised before, but I pose them in a completely contrary way, for example. For instance?
Yes, the idea of performance immediately comes to mind again. Of course, there's also the opposite question: to what extent is competition with others or comparing yourself to others beneficial for your own development? Or SIV training, for example. To advocate for it, so to speak. We all say it's important, that you should do it, and that you learn so much from it. But of course, there are also aspects within that might not necessarily be beneficial. Where I have a rescue landing and say, I've just experienced something I never wanted to experience and it directly takes its toll on me. And as always, it has to do with dealing with your own personality inside there. You're flying
Since when did you start? I think you wrote 2014. So now you've been flying for twelve years. Yes. What goals did you have back then? I mean, why did you start paragliding back then?
So my trigger was very clear
this climbing up and gliding down. I have to say that until the training and the first theory session I had, I had no idea that something like thermals flying even existed. It wasn't evident to me. I had a good friend who, at the time, kept posting on Instagram that he had gone up a mountain in the morning. I live, let's say, within reach of the foothills, so not very high mountains. And he kept posting photos where he had climbed the mountain for an hour or an hour and a half, flown down, and then reported quite proudly. And by noon, I was back in the office and could still work. And I thought to myself, that's something worth striving for.
Because normally, every mountain tour for me was a day trip. And that was it for the day. And that was the main reason I said that this wouldn't be uninteresting. I wanted to know how it worked, so I got in touch. For me, it was really the help with the descent. And yes, throughout the course, I learned that you can actually stay in the air longer, that you can fly away, and thus get different experiences out of your flying career.
How would you describe yourself as a pilot today? What kind of pilot type are you? I'm telling you, I'm
...also a range. I'm certainly a pleasure pilot. I'm not a competition pilot. Even when I fly cross-country, I'm relatively slow and I don't actually do it in comparison to others or in competition with others.
And when I fly cross-country, the main aspect for me isn't the challenge of finding thermals again and climbing, but actually the enjoyment of the landscape. I love it, I find it fascinating, what I've been able to discover over these years of flying—geographical connections that I never understood back in school. Like when I switch from one valley to another and think, they actually lie right next to each other. Or seeing areas that I obviously could never see otherwise. So for me, it's something like actually enjoying the flying itself and taking in the landscape.
And it's an activity, an occupation, that also leads me very strongly toward my personality. I believe that flying is also truly personality-defining.
In what ways would you say that? Or where has paragliding shaped you so much that you'd say certain sides of your personality come out, which are important, but are just so fostered by the flying?
So, I believe that
when flying, perhaps more generally, for pilots who especially fly for longer periods—meaning not those who discover it after a few months or maybe a few years—it's nothing new that pilots have a certain character trait that isn't unique to this industry, but is at least defining, and one that I also find in myself. While we are all social and exchange with friends, and of course talk about our experiences and have our launch site conversations, we are alone in the air. For the most part. Now, of course, you can observe and see where others climb better, but basically, we are traveling alone. It's my experience, it's my decisions that I want to make and must make in the air.
It's my failure if I can't find the thermals anymore or if I don't manage a clean landing, or perhaps even if an accident occurs. It's my success when I do a cross-country flight and when I go down to land and still have a huge smile on my face for the rest of the evening on the way home. That also implies that I am truly someone who wants to make decisions and who can enjoy doing so. And I've always had that in my core. I was always quite bad at team sports in school. I also have to admit, I've never been a real team player professionally,
but in the air, these
personal factors have really become clear to me. And these, also these,
I'd call it this readiness, this responsibility, to really live it, take it on, and make it conscious for myself.
Through paragliding, you also ended up at the Thermik publisher, where you're now a managing director alongside Norbert Aprysnik.
Would you say that was a real consequence? Like, you started paragliding, got to know that part of your life, your personality, and you say, "At some point, I want the other thing too." You also worked in the advertising industry before, had your own agency and all that. Did you say you want to bring those two worlds together professionally somehow? Was that a goal at some point?
I don't think it was a goal, but it just happened that way, and I'm very happy it did. So, as you said, I had already become self-employed in the 90s with an advertising agency, and I always put it this way: I don't think I was unsuccessful, at least in the northern part of Austria, with this agency where I had the luck and the ambition to be able to sell it in 2018. And then I did what so many people wish for, not just in the paragliding sport, namely to say, I'm going flying every day now. I have enough opportunities, I have the time to really live it out, and I actually did that for about a year—not just going flying, but I was mountain biking,
and I looked around a lot and really enjoyed life, but I slowly started to realize that I was simply missing that entrepreneurial challenge. Also this professional context, creating something and pushing something forward, and yeah, during this time it just happened because the new Dau-Prisnik is in roughly the same flying areas as I am, and we started talking and somehow it came about that on one hand, he declared a need to say he has to take some measures and also define a new goal, especially with regard to digitalization—not even define a goal, but first get clear on where it's actually supposed to go?
Is digital, in whatever form, the future? Will there still be a printed Thermik magazine in ten years, or is it a trend where we already have to say that's perhaps a dying branch? And on the other side, I wasn't just an advertising agency, but also a management consultant, and at that moment, of course, I heard signals that made me think, highly interesting. Not just as a company, but also in the industry, highly interesting. And yeah, that's how we came together, and for about a year I worked with Norbert as a strategic consultant, as an outsider, as a service provider, and out of that it arose, what if you, at all,
...if we continue to expand this interconnectedness, and I then joined the management. This isn't an official title, because the company only has one managing director, but I think I take on a role that operates at a management level, and then it's not just strategic consulting anymore, but we actually defined and pushed forward the entire development process together.
Probably, if you were to put it in English, you'd be the CTO today, the Chief Technological Officer, because if I understand correctly, you're mainly the head behind the digital strategy and the digital transformation of the Thermikverlag, right?
Yes, so in terms of my role, there are actually three areas. One is, to put it very simply, I'm responsible for the advertising clients, so I have contact with all the manufacturers and am very well-connected there; that's just the day-to-day business. But I already see a second role that connects me very strongly with Norbert, namely in the strategic further development of the company, and that has shaped the company very strongly over the last few years—about six or seven years now. And yes, everything that then goes into implementation, starting from the website to the webshop, and now starting on January 1st, 2026, the thermik.cloud platform,
the result of a strategic development we actually defined in 2023; that also includes the digital magazine, the app development—all of that goes through my desk.
Thermik has only been available online since the beginning of this year. So, what you guys discussed back in, when was it, 2018 or something, that in ten years everything might only be in the digital sphere—has that happened now? For you personally, do you see that as a positive development, not at all from a business figures perspective, but simply in terms of, let's say, the haptics or something? So, are you the digital person who says, I think that's good, or do you say, I understand if people say something is missing?
Oh, both, both. I can also remember that interview you did with Norbert very well, who, like many other pilots, naturally regrets that the magazine as such no longer exists in printed form. And I can really relate to that. I don't just consume Thermik magazine; I've also subscribed to and bought magazines in other areas over years and decades, so I'm very strongly connected to magazines in general. I can understand it.
However, I believe that this overall development regarding information transfer—let's say, information provision, and now perhaps specifically regarding magazines—is that printed magazines are losing more and more importance, accessibility, and acceptance, and are moving more into the digital realm. I see that very positively. I'm even experiencing it myself. In the last year or two,
I don't read through the thermals magazine completely anymore. I'll put it this way. Even though I'm normally someone who reads a magazine from the first to the last page. Even if it's now available digitally again. Since 2026, I've had it with me everywhere on my iPad and I read it in all sorts of places. Even if it's just one page at a time and I keep scrolling, whether I'm in the waiting room, on the bus, or wherever. So I'm really getting back into reading more intensively, and I'm also getting this kind of feedback from many of our readers and subscribers. So yes, I also understand that there are many who regret that it's no longer available in print.
But I believe that the development is definitely a positive one.
I find that interesting. I mean, I notice with myself—I have a subscription with you, of course, because I want to know what you're writing and what you're showing about the scene. But I notice that with the printed magazine we had before, to be honest, it would sit in the bathroom. And when I went in there... and I'm the type who sits for a while, I like to read around a bit, and I'd basically always turn another page. Now, I don't necessarily take my iPad into the bathroom to swipe through things or whatever. But because the magazine is lying there somewhere, whether it's in the bathroom or on the kitchen table or whatever, I'm more likely to grab it. The other thing is, if it's lying somewhere digitally on the iPad, it's not visible to me.
So, there's a certain lack of visibility. I mean, I don't just grab it. I have to actively go there and say, okay, I'm opening this now. I first have to open the app and then I look. Oh, there's a new issue. I'll flip through it and stuff. But that's a much more active process. I don't have that first impulse just because the issue is lying there. That just doesn't happen. That might be the other side that you don't experience as much. But I can imagine that you also have a nice effect with this Freitag thermals, even if it wasn't necessarily intended at the beginning, but now you also have this effect where you say, roughly every week, it reminds me. There's this thermals. I'm basically giving you a thought prompt, and at the same time, people say, oh, maybe I could take a look, is there a new magazine? Or now that I'm already on it, I'll take a look further.
So, from your perspective, has that also gained an additional marketing effect?
Yes, for sure. But let me just pick up on what you just said regarding your consumption habits concerning thermals. I think that the consumption behavior regarding a digital magazine is definitely not the same as for a printed magazine. And yes, of course, we're getting quite a few pieces of feedback saying, not just that I miss it, but that I'm not reading it anymore or much less. And yes,
it doesn't correspond to my idea or my consumption habits anymore, in terms of how I want to receive this information. It's set up differently. But I also think, and I see this in the usage figures and the new subscriptions that have been set up, that there are many people who say, I don't want something like just receiving information, but I really want a lifestyle magazine. I want those beautiful photos and I want this world of experience that is conveyed with it. So it's not about news, like for example in your newsletter that you also send, but it's about a world that is conveyed here through the thermals magazine, where I can just lose myself.
and not just receive information, but also experience it alongside us. And this world is also meant to be enriched by other tools that we have since created, as well as by the Friday thermals. So Friday thermals isn't just marketing and advertising activity, but is intended to enrich that world inside. It's a different kind of consumption. It brings in new aspects that didn't exist with the printed magazine yet. It also opens up a little piece of a new world, and based on the user numbers and the new subscriptions, which are by no means few, and also the feedback that is being consciously given to us here, we see that there are also many pilots who are embracing it and want exactly that.
And we see ourselves confirmed in that, because our hearts bleed with every cancellation and every subscription that
is canceled. thermik.cloud is now, in a sense, developing into a platform. So it's not just the magazine there, but you also offer a small paraglider universe around it with other offers. What is that? Tell me briefly, you can do a bit of self-promotion. What else can be found on thermik.cloud and why specifically that?
Yes, so with thermik.cloud we've just started with the basics. Big plans are still ahead. So what I'm saying now is the status quo. On one hand, there's the thermik magazine, and specifically the entire archive of the last 13 years—or it's 14 years now—is on there. That alone is an added benefit; if I want to see or read a glider test from three years ago, in the printed version we constantly received requests like, "Can you send me that as a PDF?" or "Can you send me the magazine again?" Now it's available as part of a total subscription. Although the paramotor magazine is no longer published in a regular version, we've included the entire archive there as well for reading.
And there are many aspects in both magazines that are at least timeless. I'm thinking of FlySafe reports, for example, from Franz Seiler, or many aspects that Michael Nessler brings in, which also raise a lot of feedback and questions. So, the magazines are in there. We've created our own section with test reports, which in turn is linked to a paraglider database where I can claim that, alongside various attempts or existing paraglider databases worldwide, it is currently the most extensive and best-maintained paraglider database. We now have nearly 500 current paragliders in there and are very committed to keeping them up to date.
And this paraglider database is now being expanded with further functions, namely where you can immediately compare paragliders with one another. And attached to this paraglider database, of course, are various reviews, including your glider tests. So, for the gliders you tested, for example, the links are built in, but also to testers such as FlyBubble or CrossCountry Magazine, or even our gliders, our test reports. Furthermore, two months ago, we released the database to the flight schools. We don't claim it's complete; it can sometimes be the case that some flight schools are still missing, but that is again the basis for a module that will actually be released in the coming days.
and which we've already had in operation in a sort of beta version over the last two years—namely a system, I'd say a tool, that enables the flight school, in conjunction with the students, to document the progress they make according to their training plan—basic training, SIV training, whatever it may be—and to no longer work with written logbooks, for example, and all the processes necessary for that, with confirmations from the flight instructors where necessary, with the exports that are then required, so that the flight school can actually submit this progress to the corresponding institutions.
What we want to achieve with this is, on one hand, applications and yes, information, but also functional provision for the gliding scene—and for us, that's characterized not just by pilots from the very first minute, but also by the flight schools, whom we as Thermik Magazine perhaps included far too little in our plans and far too little in our scope in previous years. We often discussed it, but perhaps we lacked the tools for it. And now we want to provide that so we can have a point of contact where exactly these groups find each other and, of course, can connect with a third group in the industry, which are the manufacturers.
If manufacturers now have the opportunity not just to place ads on thermik.cloud, but also to share news or information that might be significant somewhere—be it safety notices or whatever—then that can contribute to this conglomerate where these three groups work together. So, with this platform, we actually want to become something like a hub—not a news portal, to be clear, but rather a hub where many people say, "I'll take a look there" when they are looking for a glider, a test report, information, or when they want to work with a flight school.
...something like that. So, a kind of brokerage platform, if we put it that way.
...something like that. So, let's call it a kind of mediation platform. But to get onto this platform, do I have to take out a subscription with you? Or are there many areas of it that are free and openly accessible? You can register for free.
Using the flight schools, for example, and also this new system I just mentioned, is free for all pilots to use. Regarding paragliders, it's such that the associated tests—the ones that can be retrieved—only the tests from the last 12 months are paid. And by paid, I mean there is a single overall subscription for the entire platform, which then includes access to the magazines and the archive, and for example, the glider tests from the last 12 months. By the way, I also have a flight log, a little flight logbook, on there now, which I forgot to mention earlier.
That does exist on the other platforms, but it's also linked to the other functionalities we have on the platform. And here, too, the first 100 flights are free. If someone wants to keep using it after that, well, then there's the overall subscription that can be taken out. So there are many areas that can be used for free, or at least are available for free up to a certain extent. That
means that these free offers are, of course, a marketing attempt for you to get people onto your platform.
Sure. And
the hope is that eventually they'll all become subscribers and pay their bit more than 80 euros. Yes. And then they get the full package. That's how it is, exactly, very clear, yes. Can I find these Freitags -Thermiken that you're writing about just like that on thermik.cloud? I mean, is there an archive of all these Freitags -Thermiken there?
Since the beginning, and still to this day, there is an archive of Friday thermals on thermik.at, so not on thermik.cloud. To be honest, we're not entirely sure yet what the future holds for these two platforms. So until now, thermik.at has been the website, and the webshop is also on there, which we still operate. I'm not entirely sure about the strategic direction yet, whether these two platforms will continue to exist in parallel in the future, because it can sometimes look a bit confusing as to how and where I can find things. But yes, to answer the question, the archive of the Friday thermals is also available on thermik.at; it's integrated there. There
you can then read all over 500 of them. I think at the moment it's set up so that you see the last 100,
I think you can read them. But it's purely a settings thing. So, yeah.
What's the plan for Freitags Thermik? In your view, will you be writing it for years to come?
I'm highly motivated to keep writing them. Yes, I'm constantly thinking and looking. Not just for topics, which I believe are inexhaustible, but how can we also use the Freitags Thermik to perhaps...
...more engagement, more feedback. While that might happen more often with provocative topics, and it's fun when they do come in, sometimes I'd also like to receive feedback that helps us with our "To-Dos"—how we move forward with our platforms, what we can do better, what we can improve, and through this interactivity and feedback loop, get to know the pilots even better. But yeah, it's being continued and it will keep going.
But there's no central platform or on thermik.at, where you have the archive, where there's a function for the comments or emails you get regarding these individual ones to be posted there. I can't read them back. So there are comments on Facebook, which are obviously there, but those are only the few that come there via Facebook, but there isn't something, like a central platform or a central place, where you say, that's where the discussion around the Freitagsthermik actually takes place.
So, over the last, I believe, two or three years, I'd say at irregular intervals, and sometimes even several times in a row, there have been posts in Thermikmanagement, in the magazine itself, where we've included feedback from the Freitagsthermik—especially feedback we received via email—which we also printed; I'd call them something like letters to the editor, and where I also allowed myself to react to one or another of these comments or perhaps provide some input. It hasn't been in the last few issues, but we haven't taken it off the table. So, whenever several Freitagsthermiken have been created where there's more feedback or input, where we say, "That's really interesting, even for a larger pilot group,"
...we'll definitely continue these series.
But that's with a certain time lag, and then it's also just the printed or, in this case, digital form where you can read it later. It's written down once, but there's also no way to react directly. Yeah. Have you never thought about that? I mean, I find Freitagsthermik is really unique in its way because it raises questions and takes looks at the paraglider scene—not in every episode, but in many things really regularly—that are certainly worth discussing, worth thinking about, worth asking about. And then I sometimes think, yeah, why isn't there a summary platform where people can react to it currently, and where the scene would really feel like saying, hey, I'm reading that, I'm getting involved, and then it really happens,
Maybe not in every episode, because not every one is that interesting, but quite often an active discussion does pop up there. The emails you get, only you can read those, or maybe the others in the editorial team, but it's not something that others can react to, like a real discussion platform for it. That's actually something I'd still like to see; if you could set that up on terbik.cloud or wherever, I think that would be great, because I believe something could really grow out of that and be genuinely interesting for people.
So let me say one thing before I give you the answer. Of course, everything is fluid and work is constantly being done on it, and what I'm about to say might be completely different in a few months, and we might have decided on a different development. At the moment, I see it this way: the Friday thermals shouldn't develop in a direction where it could become a kind of discussion forum where actual discussions take place on a platform. To get back to the reason, to the core of this again, it's actually important to me to trigger thoughts, maybe even discussions, wherever they may take place.
This trigger is important to me. It's important to me that reading pilots say, "That's something that's annoying me right now," or "That's something that's making me think," or "That's something that confirms my thinking." Why is that, actually? Or what's moving me inside? And I experience it with real enjoyment when I'm out at airfields, maybe also the day after, on a Saturday, and sometimes I listen in a bit on the pilots and the community that are there, and sometimes real discussions do take place where I hear, "Did you read this and that in the Freitagsthermik?"
And was it great or was it insane, or what is he writing now? That's actually the goal—this triggering—and not necessarily to map out the discussions that follow. Because as diverse as pilots' opinions are, as diverse as their goals and moments of enjoyment are, so diverse are the discussions that take place, and they're allowed to happen in all sorts of places. But I'll say it again: current opinion, current view, current strategy—maybe that will change. Do you have a sense of mission? Yes, definitely. At least something like a trigger awareness.
So it's not about me conveying my opinion, my beliefs, my stance, my faith, or my strategies, but I see every conversation, every question, and every statement as a prompt to my counterpart to generate a reaction.
And I like those reactions. I like it when the wheels start turning, and even if it's an outburst, for example, or someone is annoyed. I like that, because something truly valuable comes out of those conversations. And that's why, yeah, I enjoy sending things and triggering people.
Have you ever received feedback from any of your Friday mics where you said, "Hey, there was a reaction or a development that came out of that, and I'm really proud of it"?
No, I couldn't really answer that for you. I think that the feeling of being proud of something is less of the effect I'm looking for or perhaps have as a goal. It's not about whether I'm proud of something, but rather,
yes, as I said, to spark discussions, to spark thoughts. If something like that comes up, maybe that's what you mean by pride, then it also creates a certain...
let's call it contentment. I believe it's simply necessary not to retreat into your own world, but to open up, to exchange ideas, and also to become aware that your own preferences, methodologies, strategies, and worldview have value and can be shared to contribute to a diversity as colorful as our gliders are. And that is the true value of this pilot community.
What questions are we paraglider pilots asking ourselves too little?
Maybe in the direction of how others are doing, what kind of great experiences others are having, and not just asking, but also confirming it, encouraging them to keep going. I believe that praise and well-meaning, sincere confirmation from others—and this might be a bit of a sign of our times—is expressed far too rarely, and it should happen more often. And if someone has done their first five or ten kilometer flight after training, I'm one of those people who would say, hey, how awesome, how awesome that you did that, how awesome what you've done.
I might have experienced this myself—I'm a bit branded by it—but I told a seasoned pilot in my community about my first ten-kilometer flight, and I told him with so much pride and euphoria. And he said, "Ten kilometers? That's not a cross-country flight." And that bothered me for days, and I think that's exactly the kind of mutual reaction that's just right. Not played, not forced, but it's great, it's awesome, and it's something we maybe do far too rarely.
I'll leave that there as a closing word. People, praise yourselves more, even for the small experiences and great progress you make on a small scale. That's what the paragliding scene actually lacks, or maybe it doesn't lack it, but it could live it much more strongly than it does now. And you're also trying to set corresponding impulses with your Friday thermals, to get people to start thinking about it. I thank you for that too. Thanks for your feedback.
If you don't know about the Friday thermals yet but want to read them now, the links to the corresponding email subscription and the archive are in the show notes. Did you enjoy the episode? Then subscribe to Podz-Glidz, leave a comment, and recommend the podcast to your friends. And if you want to help ensure that I can continue to entertain and inform you so well with Podz-Glidz and the associated paraglider blog Lu-Glidz, then please become a supporter. 1-2 euros per podcast episode plus 1-2 euros per reading month on Lu-Glidz certainly won't hurt you, but as a freelance journalist, they provide me with the necessary foundation to continue these projects. All further information on how your freely chosen support contribution reaches me can be found on the Lu-Glidz blog on the support page.
See you next time. Your Lucian.