What we're seeing overall, though, is that gliders almost never collapse nowadays. And that's also much harder for us test pilots, because with these increasingly stable gliders, we can't just fly at full throttle until it collapses. We used to do that often—you'd just barrel through the turbulence without any action until the glider collapsed. But nowadays, people are afraid of having a collapse. That's the difference.
Podz-Glidz, the Lu-Glidz podcast. Stories from the universe of paragliding. Today with Michael Maurer. And I am Lucian Haas.
In the public eye, Michael Maurer is often overshadowed by his famous older brother Chrigel Maurer. But when it comes to flying, there are very few differences. Michael is also an athletic success and can frequently be found on the podiums. From Akro to XC to Hike and Fly. Although, the 36-year-old still carries a reputation of being the seemingly eternal runner-up. We'll talk about what that might be due to in this episode 193 of Podz-Glidz. Among other things, we'll discuss how Michael experiences his role as Chrigel's little brother and why he isn't quite as ambitious as the Podz-Glidz. Another topic is his experience as a test pilot at Advance,
his growing respect for maneuvers over the years and the downside of development, which is that modern gliders are becoming increasingly collapse-resistant. Michael Maurer was the first pilot to fly a paraglider through a 70-meter-long tunnel. He talks about his experiences during this stunt and his dream of an even more spectacular flight project.
By the way, I can only offer 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 paragliding blog Lu-Glidz, specifically on the Support page.
Michael, Tony Bender has passed away. Did you know him? Not
really well. I saw him every now and then, mostly in Santillär. But yeah, I knew Tony. Not personally in that sense,
Yeah. Tony was considered a legend in the sport. What significance do such legends have for paragliding?
I admire the people, and Tony in particular, for his perseverance in paragliding and his passion for staying involved and trying new things there for years. Yes, he was also involved in development at NOVA. He was always pushing there, and he never lost the motivation, that passion for paragliding. That impresses me a lot and, yes, I think it's always getting harder and isn't a given that people like that can put in this energy and have this much joy in it.
Tony was one of the first, a real pioneer; I think he was one of the first Germans to fly kites. And then he was also one of the first to switch to paragliding and stayed with it. So, a real pioneer, that kind of guy. And sometimes I get the impression that, yes, the paragliding scene has matured in a positive sense, in terms of technology and everything else, but it might have lost some of that adventure, whatever spirit it had in the early days. Do you see it similarly? Yes, definitely.
So, if I think about having to fly or test the gliders they had back then, that was a completely different world. And I think from a mindset perspective, you had to function differently. And the adventure was certainly a much bigger driving factor than building some high-performance glider. Of course, that was also an issue back then, but nowadays everything is much more complex and nuances decide whether it's a good product or not. And that's just how it is. It has certainly lost some of the adventurous side, which isn't a bad thing, but it's different, exactly.
Yeah, in the beginning, sometimes going from one paraglider to the next meant gaining a whole glide ratio, basically just from the technical development moving forward, and today you're fighting for tenths, maybe, that you can somehow still squeeze out at full speed or something. You work as a test pilot at Advance. Do you actually have something like a glider archive at Advance where you could reach in and say, I'll pull out a glider from 1992 or something, way before the time you started paragliding, and say, I'll just try it out. And have you ever done that?
I've never done that. We have a few products stored here. Not all of them. I can't say off the top of my head, but they're some interesting gliders that were significant for something.
And yeah, actually, it would be a good idea to do that. That would be really exciting.
Just feeling out the history of paragliding itself. A week ago, I was at the flight show myself, and someone had three—there was a glider there, I think one from 1992 and one from the late 80s or something. That was more just for ground handling. Just to try out if you can pull them up or not. And you couldn't get one up at all. And then the question was, okay, is the line so distorted that it just hangs at three-quarters and you can't get it any higher? Or did people really just throw themselves down the steep slope so that it might eventually fly? I don't know. But it was interesting just to feel that out and also to see, hey, they had—well, there weren't two-liners at the canopy back then, but at the bottom they also only had, so to speak, A and B-harnesses, which they used to pull up and steer with.
That you see, ah, somewhere, it just goes in circles like that.
Yeah, actually, with modern two-liners we're back up there with multiple attachment points and a two-liner, exactly. And yeah, I think, you know what, many older pilots tell me, yeah, you know, 1995, or whatever, we flew from there to there and so on. And I often think to myself, if you wanted to fly back then, you really had to want to, really want to, and nowadays it's often like, yeah, cool, flying, I'll do that sometime. And I believe that experiencing that again with an old glider could be exciting and change and refresh that whole awareness of flying again.
Because, you know, what we can and do today with the equipment is just enormous. I mean, it's really something. It's come a long way, yeah.
The beginnings often involved those wild men with their wild boxes, even if they weren't boxes, or the wild gliders they threw themselves down with. Do you think that if you had been born 20 years younger or earlier, you would have started flying back then too, or would you have said, no, that's actually nothing for me in that form because it's simply too risky, too dangerous, or whatever?
Yeah, I think so. I think so, maybe not. I mean, my willingness to take risks, my desire to try something out, is different now, after 20 years of flying, compared to when I was 16 and started. And I think if I had been 16 twenty years earlier, I would have done it the same way, I believe. Because basically, flying is still the same. Nothing changes. And you don't know what's coming 20 years later. You could say, yeah, I'll wait another 20 years, then I'll fly because it's safer.
That
So, you were a daredevil at 16?
No, not a daredevil. No, I don't think daredevil. But when I was flying, I never felt like I had to risk anything. I just enjoyed doing it and was also curious to learn something. Because of my role model, my brother Chrigel, who contributed a lot to my aviation career, it wasn't about being a daredevil, but just getting into it, growing into it, and then continuing to try things out. Did you learn from Chrigel, so did he teach you how to fly?
Yes, I think you could say that. I've always said he's basically my aviation handbook. Whenever I had questions or anything, he knows a lot and we talked about all sorts of things, including Akrofliegen and so on. Often the answer was just, I have to try it. I can't really tell you how, but it also helped that you couldn't just watch everything on YouTube.
From that perspective, I believe he taught me very, very much, and I wouldn't be here if I hadn't had him as a mentor.
Did he actually encourage you to fly, or did you see him flying and say, "That's what you're doing, I want to do that too, and how can I do it now?" And then he helped you get there.
No, well, he made it possible for me, let's say, by taking me tandem flying on one hand. I really enjoyed that, and eventually, at the age of 15, the moment came for the apprenticeship, and there, if, well, the parents wouldn't necessarily have said, yes, you can go, he just took care of it in that sense, and also offered me financial support back then,
what I then paid him back month by month during my apprenticeship as a structural draughtsman. So, yeah, thanks to him, I was able to
fly. He paid for your course and your equipment and said, okay, this is basically a loan you have with me, and then you can pay it back bit by bit.
pay back. Yes, that's exactly how it was. Yes, thanks to him I could fly, but he didn't tell me, hey, come on, go fly, that's cool, that's great. It was, well, at least that's not how I remember it, but, yeah, he made flying possible for me, yes.
From what I've observed with many families, where there are several children and several brothers and such, it's often the case that the younger brother is the more adventurous one, but then he doesn't necessarily do what the older one does. He finds his own thing. Have you never had that?
I think flying is for both of us,
I mean, until, let's say, 22 or 23 years old or so, there was nothing else for me but flying. I was flying every day if I could, and it was the same for Chrigel. Many people might have had a problem if one was better than the other, that it was an issue. But for me, it was never an issue in any way that could have held me back from flying or from competition flying and so on. And I mean, the way Chrigel does the whole thing and the way I do the whole thing is actually completely different. From that perspective, we're not on the same level or on the same path, and there's room for both.
You've just put it very nicely, now you have to explain that to me. So, what's the difference between a Chrigel Maurer and a Michael-Maurer-Fliegerisch?
I think he...
Chrigel, he's the athlete, the sportsman, and I'm more the one in the background, who prefers working in development rather than on stage. In that sense, I don't really care if they're always only talking about Chrigel and so on. And he certainly reached his level through his ambition. And I think, in my case, it's not that it's missing, no, the ambition is just less intense. And I would never have flown competitions if I didn't have some ambition too. But if I didn't reach the goal sometimes and all that, then it was also fine.
I think that's the main difference. That's the Chrigel. Because Chrigel also has this passion and ambition and still actually keeps up at the highest level. And for me, it's like, yeah, I like doing it. It's my hobby, really my hobby. And for Chrigel, it's the profession. And I think you can tell that overall. Of course, he enjoys flying too, just like I do. That's clear. But... Yeah, it's hard to say exactly what it is, but the
Advice. Would a Michael Maurer with more ambition be better than a Chrigel Maurer in terms of flying?
No, I don't think so. I don't think that would change much. I think the ambition is more... Sure, you could say that consistency comes from higher ambition. Ambition... it often sounds a bit negative, maybe it does. But it's the motivation to always deliver at your best, that's what I think it would actually be better described as. And if I had that too, I don't think I'd fly better, or not better than Chrigel anyway, but I'd just deliver more consistent results or some...
If I'm doing a long-distance flight, then it's not... not necessarily landing after 10 hours, but after 11 hours and just being a bit further along. I do believe that.
When you fly together now, do you harmonize perfectly, or are there points where you notice, "well, we have slightly different ideas as pilots..." and you have to agree on something first? Or is it really just intuitive? You know exactly that the other person wants to get to the other side of the valley because we assume that... it has to go up right there, even if it might not be immediately obvious to others.
Yes, we certainly have our differences, but I think overall we're on the same wavelength and fly similarly. Because of that, we don't need many words. It's always impressive for me, I'd say. Every year I'm extremely surprised at how well the synchronized flying with Chrigel works. And yes, we fly a lot. Akro, solo, and for certain shows—especially at the Ski World Cup in Adelboden, where we were able to do an Akro show every year. Every now and then we still have time to do one or two flights in advance, synchronized flights, but we don't actually need to, because everyone knows what they're doing.
We fly so similarly that we can actually... jump out of the helicopter and do synchro flying. Without much communication and so on. So that definitely works because our level in Akrofliegen is the same, more or less the same and high. So not like the way the guys are doing Akrofliegen at the moment, but for what we have to do, our maneuvers, we can actually fly so well that it simply leaves time to look for the other person and see what they're doing, and also to react to certain unplanned things.
That works very well, yes.
Is there something like a Maurer-pilot gene, where you're just, like, biologically predisposed in your way of thinking, so you say, somehow it shows that I also...
Yeah, the pilot gene—I just think, yeah, maybe that's the pilot gene, because we're flying right now.
Maybe we would have done ski touring races, then it would maybe be the ski touring gene. I definitely don't have that.
But yeah, in that sense, maybe a certain pilot gene, because I think one thing you need to fly well or reach a high level is certainly, on one hand, the will to fly a lot and dedicate yourself to it, and not just fly every now and then because you also cycle and run and do various other things. Yeah, and I think, as I said earlier regarding Toni, that's something inside a person... that he has this passion. And that's what then in this sport
to a
brings a certain level. Now, in the paragliding scene, at least in public perception, you're actually always Chrigel's brother or the little brother of Chrigel. So it's very often mentioned or thought of alongside him, and then it's almost like a label you have on you. Does that bother you or does it honor you?
Yeah, that's funny. I have a little anecdote about that, I have to laugh. And I always tell it again. I was once in Adelboden for Akrofliegen, landed by the lift, and was packing up. Then three people, three pilots, came running over. Then I heard from a distance, "Oh, look, look, it's Chrigel." And three or four steps closer they say to their colleague, "Oh, it's just his brother."
And I find that so funny. I'm often mistaken for Chrigel because we're supposed to look similar. Not when we're out together, though, because I'm effectively the younger brother. Chrigel is somehow ten centimeters taller or more. So in that sense, it's true that I'm the little brother. That's not an issue for me, it fits well.
You mentioned ambition earlier. I find it quite interesting. Chrigel, whom you describe as ambitious, or someone who always wants to win and all that, does do that quite often. And at least in Hike and Fly, he's the dominator of the Red Bull X-Alps until the very last one. But he might get the next one again because now he's saying, no, I'm not letting that slide. And otherwise, he always wins there too. You're also relatively successful in sports. But if you look closely at your sporting successes, you see quite often that you tend to dominate in second place. Exactly. And you were once, you were once second in Roldanillo in the PWC Superfinal. You were once vice-world champion and I think you were still leading until the last task.
and then at the last task, you didn't lose, but you slipped down so much that Honoré Amare still won. And if I saw it correctly, at the Eiger Tour—so Hike and Fly competitions—you always participate, but I think you've come in second four times in a row or something like that. Is that a curse, or is it just part of your system? I often
you feel guilty towards other people who are desperately trying to fly better, and you often think, shit, I'm always right there at the front. Maybe I'm just not ambitious or structured enough to actually get all the way to the top. That's where I see the difference compared to the rule, because it's just not that important to me. Being the perpetual second place is actually great for me. I'm super happy with my results each time. Sure, every now and then you think, I should have invested a bit more here and there, or done it better, and so on.
But overall, I think I've come relatively far with my "effort" as well. And I think what's important to me is that I enjoy flying and everything I do. And if that's enough to get a second, third, or fourth place—well, not fourth anymore, but second or third place—then that's great. And yeah, I've also won events and competitions. And that's of course cool. You are
won two Swiss championships. That should also be mentioned here. And I believe you also won Swiss Akro champion twice, at least in Synchro. Exactly. I think you also became Swiss Akro champion once. Yes, exactly. Or maybe twice.
That was quite a while ago already.
I think that was in 2012. But yeah, it's not like I was never an opportunist. And it's not like I was, let's say, always at the front whenever the top pilots weren't there. But I think it's extremely important to me that I enjoy what I do. And yeah, I'm more the kind of pilot who maybe doesn't think everything through. And if it works out—in the sense that I just try it now, and if it doesn't work out, it doesn't matter—then I might end up second, third, or whatever. Further back. But if you want to win, especially in—that was already like 2013, 2014 in the PWC or at the World Championships—if you wanted to win, then you actually had to be controlled.
And we Swiss aren't really known for controlling, for following someone until the very end. And then your nerves are sometimes already shot before the finish line. And you just want to go and pull. I think my competition—my generation—was often all or nothing.
Just collecting leading points or just flying your own lines. And that rarely comes with an event win.
It's more of a playful approach. A playful way of doing it. Less of the strategist, and more of the person who says, I'll just give it a try.
Not so rigid. Yeah, exactly.
That made it all the more beautiful when it cleared up. When you took a risk and it worked out. But yeah, the group is always faster. And if you fly alone nowadays, you don't stand a chance anymore.
There was this scene during the Eiger Tour. I don't know which year it was, I don't. It must have been about two years ago, I think, or something. You were up there at the front too. Chrigel was too. And then there was a scene at some pass. There was fog and stuff. And Chrigel, while still in some fog bank where he had a bit of visibility, started off. And you didn't start there. And that basically might have even cost you the victory in the end. Do you remember?
Yes, I think there were various fog banks. In the fog pockets.
You
always flies in the fog during these I Can Fly competitions. No, in the holes. Yes, okay, in the fog holes. You Swiss know your way around holes in cheese and also holes in the fog, and you know how to get through them.
Yeah, no, I think you're referring to the situation at the Sussenpass, where he was able to fly over the pass, and I had to walk back up to the pass because I had walked a bit further down beforehand due to the weather. And then at the pass itself, I also had fog and had to wait a bit there. Ah, there
you couldn't fly over it. Exactly. Ah, so I had that slightly wrong in the back of my mind, but it was still something where you were more like, you walked further down to say, okay, I probably want to take less risk. Yeah. And Chrigel with his ambition says, I'll wait up there? In that case, that was
not necessarily the risk, more the weather situation, plus for me personally, it was too steep to take off there. But I did consider taking off there. That wouldn't necessarily be, rather, taking on a higher risk.
is. You are, I'm going to do a little change of subject now, you're a father of three today. Has becoming a father changed your approach to flying?
Yes, I'm often asked that. I always say it was never a conscious change in my actions or my thinking about flying. It was just that I already wanted to be back home for dinner before.
And from that perspective, I don't think I ever consciously changed anything. But in the back of my mind, subconsciously, maybe something did shift. I can't say exactly, but it's also true that as you get older, things change. Yes, ultimately I believe that more has changed because I got older than because I became a father.
How does getting older change aviation? Or the approach to aviation?
Yeah, you just have more experience, you've seen a lot. And for me personally, it's just that I'd rather say, hey, I don't need that anymore. Even if I could do it, even if I used to do it. In the sense of, yeah, I did that before, but I don't have to have it or do it anymore. And...
And I admire many young pilots, or also older pilots, who still do something cool. I mean, not necessarily risky stuff, but just a slope spiral somewhere when it's thermically active and doesn't just have two meters of snow and all that. Then I think, yeah, I've done that too. And I actually want to do it too. But oh well, it's fine. Maybe a stupid example, but there are situations where I just think, I'll skip that now because I might not have as much practice with it anymore.
or I know that I can do it technically, but my gut feeling doesn't agree that I can. Maybe even a bit more when it really counts somewhere, whether in a windy corner or against a rugged cliff. That was never really a problem for me, but I'm and have never been super relaxed in the mountains when climbing. That's not my sport. Not because of a fear of heights, but rather a fear of falling, let's say. And many people always say, yeah, if it's turbulent, it's no problem for you, you can handle it anyway, and so on. But I'm still uncomfortable.
There are many situations where I just say, okay, come on, I'm going to land now. It's too much of a hassle to let myself get shaken up because I don't like it anyway, no matter what.
That surprises me a bit, because I mean, you've been working as an official test pilot at ADVANCE since 2013. And the idea of a test pilot is always someone who lets gliders collapse pretty hard and basically goes through it constantly. Gets shaken up. And probably experiences many collapses that he—or you'd also say, he should actually be so trained in collapse flying that he's relatively indifferent to what he experiences out in the wild. And then you're saying now, no, I'm scared of that. How can you work as a test pilot then? Or when you're test piloting, do you have to overcome your fear every single time before every collapse?
Yes, that's the point. I'm only human too. I get scared too. And that's... in the past, that was much less of a problem. There were already difficult gliders that I didn't like. Where I'd say, hey, after two collapses, yeah, now I really have to collapse it some more to be completely sure that it really isn't good. And of course, you then change some things. You go back to collapsing it. And it's a different process when testing, I'd say, because I was never the pilot who goes out, full throttle, and pulls on the A lines as if there were no tomorrow.
I've always, mostly over three or four flights, felt my way up to the limit. Of course, it used to go faster, and today it takes more time. But that's also the reason I don't test as much as I used to. And as you already said, I'm slowly but surely moving into the office for short-path development. And yeah, the fear—it was never fear. Because I think the important thing is, if you're afraid, then something is no longer okay with you. But you should always have respect. And that respect was often already very great.
And that's why, you had to say every now and then, like, "okay, focus, let's try flying a simple maneuver first and then move on to the harder ones." And I think there are many pilots who don't know this fear, this respect that I have. And I've also always felt that I'm not the best, the best test pilot, because of that. But my main skill in that sense, and my main knowledge too, was actually never maneuver flying, but rather setting the glider for handling, for performance, and so on.
And I think we complement each other very well at ADVAS. There are pilots who like to do the maneuvers and are good at them. And I don't really like doing them that much and have to push myself every now and then. But how
in every job. But then there are also real divisions of labor where you say, okay, there are the brave test pilots, or maybe it's the young test pilots who haven't seen that much yet, or whatever. They say, we'll send them out, they can do the heavy collapses. And you said it yourself, or at least it sounded like it just now, that you used to be faster at doing big collapses? Like today you need longer to prepare for it or more flights to get to that point. At least, that's how I understood it.
Yeah, exactly. So no, in the past, I've been in the office for almost two years more now, or more and more in the office. It was actually never the case, or at least I didn't want it to be. I didn't want to be the one doing the easy stuff while someone else did the hard work. Because in every job there are good and bad tasks, or the pros and cons. And for me, maneuver flying depended on the glider. It wasn't bad with all the gliders by far. You have to say that. That wasn't the rule. But then there are always those days where it's real work and not just a hobby turned into a profession.
And people often don't see that. Or when it's raining or windy, they're out there too and people don't see it. It's similar. Yeah, we wouldn't have to have that if we could choose it. And that's why, yeah, the maneuver flying was never shared or did I consciously leave it to others. But often, when it was really difficult gliders, I was very grateful, especially to Idris, who has been working with us for a few years now, to do certain things with him lately. And that was because I know other test pilots sometimes have trouble flying the collapse with difficult gliders.
And they have this respect for it. And people just don't talk about the fact that they might be afraid sometimes. I think that's a bit of a male thing, or a—well, I know, Regel sometimes gets an uneasy feeling. So, I think that's completely normal when flying.
How has it actually been from a development standpoint, as a test pilot—even though you're more into harness development now, but also something you've noticed over the years? I see that gliders have become easier to fly in many of the profiles. They pitch less and have a certain amount of reflex in there or something, where they might collapse a bit later because of that, or something like that. Do you notice as a test pilot, has the collapsing become more difficult over time? Just from the profiles alone, that it's much harder to pull clean collapses, or if you pull them properly, then it just knocks the whole thing over immediately. Also, with the current trend towards two-liners or something like that.
So, has the job for a test pilot ultimately become more difficult over the years than it used to be?
No, I don't think it's become harder, rather easier, because the gliders have become more pleasant for the certification maneuvers. Especially those in the Low-B or similar classes, a lot of things have become easier. Even the High-C gliders, as you said, have a certain reflex component—it doesn't necessarily have to be achieved with a reflex component, but people like to describe it that way,
the gliders have become tamer. Although you have to say that gliders are often developed to be good for the certification maneuvers. And then there are products that in reality might react a bit more sportily or differently than what we see or notice during testing.
You probably get that as a test pilot who knows a glider very well. You probably experience it during testing too, where you see, okay, there are the test collapses, this model is great now, but in between I also see, hey, it has its quirks. And if I just go over the test field a bit or it collapses a bit more steeply or something, then it's already intense. Are there things where you as a test pilot can still say, hey, we shouldn't release a glider like this?
Yes, definitely. So that is actually, let's say, our more important part nowadays, because the gliders, the prototypes, they often arrive so well adjusted or, yeah, they are already at a high level when they come out of production, that we don't necessarily have to look at the glider first—yeah, we don't have to check if it even flies or if it needs more lines and so on. And we actually know pretty well what to expect in normal flight, let's say. And then our task is usually to find and identify these specific weaknesses that are increasingly more hidden, let's say.
And that's certainly almost, yeah, nowadays almost more important than the certification itself. Of course, certification is—if the glider can't be certified, it can't be sold. And if it has a bad certification, then nobody buys it. But what we see overall is that gliders nowadays almost never fail. And that's also much harder for us test pilots, because we can fly with a glider for days and have nothing. And then there might be, as they say, okay, now we've flown around with the glider for ten days, different pilots, different weights, different settings.
It was always good. And then you fly it on the eleventh day and it's not good anymore. Because you have some situation, a specific
wind situation, whatever you had, and then the glider suddenly reacts differently. And then it's like, we have to take another look, and then it's good again for ten days. But you can then say, okay, that was an outlier. If it happens after two days or after two hours, and then again after two hours, then you know, okay, the glider is just like this and that. That makes the job as a test pilot harder in that sense. And it's also difficult to judge then—is the glider just collapsing because the conditions were like that, or is the glider collapsing because the glider reacts like that?
Is it reproducible? Is it a one-off? And that's the difficulty nowadays. With these increasingly stable gliders, we can't just fly full throttle until it collapses. We used to do that often, where you'd just ride through the turbulence without any action until the glider collapsed. But nowadays, it's scary before you even have a collapse.
That's the difference.
Why does that scare you today if it didn't scare you before? I think,
Ultimately, it's about me, because back then I knew that if it gets turbulent, if there are somehow stronger thermals and you fly full throttle through these thermals, I knew the glider would collapse at some point.
The glider was reaching its limit relatively quickly. And then you notice it's working, it's collapsing. And today, with the more stable gliders, you can fly through stronger thermals for much longer and you might have a lot of energy, it's pulling, it's building energy, it makes an impression, and the glider is super stable. Then you think, something has to happen now, it's going to hit right away, and nothing just happens. And then you think, the glider has so much energy now, I have to come out of the speed bar, because if it were to collapse or if things were to go wrong, the situation would simply be almost a bit too, too extreme.
And that's also the point where we say, yeah, well, of course the good pilots, they're going to fly full throttle through the thermals, but they can handle it, and the less skilled pilots, they get that sense of respect and they take their foot off the gas and everything is fine, and the glider doesn't care, it never collapses.
Often, it's not necessarily the collapses in accelerated flight that are the problem nowadays, but rather when thermals are involved, where, yeah, that's somewhat unfamiliar to us in the broadest sense, and we might have to reorient ourselves a bit on certain points, adding more, more items to the list that we have to check off, which we haven't really...
had. What's the difficulty there? So, do you have collapses more often in thermals? Where you say, in the past, collapses during accelerated flight were the decisive thing, and nowadays I'm catching collapses—or I used to have them too, but maybe didn't pay as much attention—but now you're catching them during thermal flying, and the gliders react more violently because they were so stable before and then maybe collapse just as violently, or what's the problem? Yes,
the point is, when you're flying in thermals, of course if it's turbulent and all that, you expect that it might collapse, but it's often those unexpected collapses in situations where it's not so obvious that a glider could collapse. And in the past, it was just always that when you were flying in gas, you were close to the glider's limit and you'd have a collapse every now and then, and now you have much fewer, almost the opposite; when you fly accelerated, you have a more stable glider like in trim speed, because with the righting moment it just becomes super stable, and it's difficult to expect those unexpected situations during testing, and yeah, the collapses, when they do happen, are perhaps more large-scale than before, that's also true.
This
Trend towards, in quotation marks, more stable gliders, so with the collapse-resistant profiles, with that certain upright moment that makes them stand up nicely—would you say that's a net positive, or is it actually a zero-sum game, because the glider might collapse less often and fly less often during acceleration, but in other situations, sometimes when you don't expect it, it's still very demanding for the pilot.
Yeah, I think, you have to consider, how do you become a good Akropilot? You do something and practice, and maybe you have a bad experience once, you learn from it, and in flying overall, it's like, you actually learn something when you have something. You learn to fly thermals by flying thermals, and you learn to launch by launching, and with collapses, you actually learn to handle a collapse by having collapses, and if you don't have any more collapses, you don't actually learn to handle them either. And of course, you go to an SIV training, but I see the problem there is that, that the gliders maybe in SIV training, a collapse often won't fall the way it falls in reality.
Overall, the best thing you can do is actually not necessarily try to master or control the collapses, but rather what to do when you have a collapse. In an SIV training, you go through Frille, Stoll, Spirale, and so on—that's actually all there is to it. It's not prevention, but, how can I put it, simply what you need when you're in an uncomfortable situation. In the past, or for me, it was always like, I want to have my glider under control when it collapses, and you actually get to know a glider well when you know, okay, now it's collapsing, now the situation is like this and this, and the feeling is like this and this, and then the glider collapses from the outside, from the middle, large-scale, small-scale,
dynamic, less dynamic, and I think ultimately that's a standard I have for myself, maybe as a competition pilot, as a frequent flyer, but overall I believe that the increasingly stable gliders are better for the pilots, even if there might be an occasional collapse that's unexpected and more violent than anticipated, I still think it's better if the glider collapses later.
Then maybe the problem is that because people have such stable gliders, they also dare to fly in more turbulent air, and with that, the gap might eventually widen—where you say that what you're actually gaining is that you have fewer collapses, and that one rare one that might pop up again, you can maybe still handle, but if you venture into more turbulent air, then you might also have these rare collapses more often, which then might also fail more violently.
Yeah exactly, it's certain that if you feel super comfortable under a glider, then you do more, or rather you push your limits more, I think. I think for certain people who eventually start feeling immortal, that's a problem. But that's been happening since way back. But I think you have to learn that it's still a paraglider, that it can still collapse, and fly with that thought in mind instead of just thinking, I've never had a collapse, I feel super comfortable, it'll never collapse because it's so stable. That's generally, I think, wrong thinking in paragliding, because as long as we're working with fabric and lines, we're going to have collapses.
That's just how it is. Even the most stable gliders will eventually collapse. You can actually see that with parakites too, which also collapse occasionally and are actually super, super stable. That's basically the
Extreme case. With paragliders, there's also the problem that they fly so close to the ground so often that if you actually get a collapse and it sweeps the canopy away, you just don't have any more air under your butt to cushion all that, or for the glider to have a chance to reopen, so then it just happens fast.
Yeah, exactly, it's in a dangerous zone, let's just say.
Well, you said earlier as a test pilot, you're not really a collapse freak, but rather someone who likes to work with the fine details, let's say, the one who does the glider settings.
What does that involve? And are there gliders where you can really say, this is basically a trim or a brake setting, a typical Michael-Maurer handling that a glider has?
Basically, the brake setting is already a major point, which is something I did a lot and enjoyed doing. Ultimately, I think that with the more stable profiles and more stable gliders, you have fewer possibilities to actually achieve much with the angle of attack or line trims. You can do a lot in terms of performance, and maybe also in speed and handling, but you can't make a bad glider good, and you can't make a good glider perfect. Like the difference—back then, there was much more often the situation where the glider wasn't certifiable, you change something, and then it is certifiable.
You have much less of that today. What you still have, of course, is the whole thing with the brake lines, where we simply say, for that, we look for different settings; a classic setting is just raising the outermost, raising the innermost, so the middle half, roughly speaking,
is braked the most, so that the glider turns flat and is well-guided. These are things we still do, but I couldn't really say that it gives it a "Michael Maurer trim" or character; I have more of a feeling that it comes from the designer and the test team in combination. So the designer has his character, the test pilot certainly does too, and there's the thing where the test pilot says, "Yeah, that's somehow too harsh, that's somehow too... there should be more direct precision there," and then the engineer says, "Okay, then I'll do this and that."
The other test pilot might say, maybe it should be more, I prefer it if it's a bit softer and longer, for it to be more pleasant, and so on. There are cases where we might say, for us, it's actually important that the glider turns relatively high up, and that is perhaps the biggest difference with Advans compared to other brands, I'd say.
Turning high up means you don't need to put much brake on for it to start turning.
Yeah exactly, that would be our goal, I'd say, and certainly he shouldn't be too harsh there either. Actually, the perfect handling, so to speak, would be if it reacts well with soft control pressure over a short distance and then turns quickly, and then becomes significantly harder as it goes down. But often, the whole thing is just a matter of wishful thinking and in the end, you just have to find the best compromise, work with the conditions you have. Maybe it's also a bit of a misconception for many pilots that we, during the development of paragliders, can say, okay, now we're cranking up more power, in exchange we're taking away a bit of handling, and now we're doing a bit more speed.
So, we're not that free with our wishes.
But you can actually still perfect a good glider with fine-tuning.
Has it ever happened, or has it already occurred, that you actually get a prototype with a certain design, which maybe isn't bad in terms of the collapses or anything like that, but where you say, it's okay, but then you go to the designer and say, hey, I can't work with this glider concept at all. It's somehow maybe too flat at the top and then just has the ears bent down, and you say, the handling that comes out of that doesn't please me. It bores out of the turns too much or something like that. So, do you actually have real discussions in the design team regarding the basic concept of such a glider? Or is it really like, the designer provides the basic concept and you as test pilots only do the fine-tuning?
Yes, that does happen, where we say, hey, the glider is actually good, but somehow we can't bring it out like this. That definitely happens. And maybe even more often than before, because the prototypes are already very good when they come out of the factory. Then there are moments where you say, actually the glider would be good, but something is still missing. And then you fly it more. So basically, we always do it this way: if a prototype has good potential, then you fly it a lot and try out different settings.
and you find out a lot through that. And often it's the case that when you look closer, you say, okay, yeah, no, there's still something here, there's something there, we're not going with that, we're going with that. And if it's then only about, let's say, preferences on my part, then it's usually the case that in the team, you say, yeah, no, actually it's good. And if someone is against it, so to speak, then you bring the glider to market as it is, because we have exactly the same situation on the market, also 100%. Yeah, one person likes it, the other doesn't. And that's actually also the interesting thing when there are different products on the market.
How many test pilots and designers—I mean, if you take that all together as a team—how big is a team at Advance? How many people are involved in that mix and how many have to coordinate with each other? Yes, if you take the whole thing...
If you include the development team, there are eight to ten people in paraglider development, though you don't really see it that way—they don't just do that. One person also does this and that, and the other is responsible for this area. The test pilots also test the harnesses and, yeah, we're actually a large team, but we've divided it up a bit here and there.
So that means per glider, in the end, is it a team of five people working on one glider, or how can you imagine that? Roughly speaking
one designer and three test pilots in total. Ultimately, there are two primary test pilots who really manage a project, and then the other two or three test pilots also fly the products, but they might be less involved in the details.
Now you're also involved in harness development. What is appealing about that for you?
Yes, I find a harness,
you spend a lot of time flying in the harness,
forced, and a harness also relies a lot on the feeling of the glider's conditions and so on. So yeah, for me as a test pilot, it was always very exciting to test harnesses and feel the different changes. And ultimately, I think, I've said before, I want to do something else at some point. I don't want to test into my old age because, first of all, I don't think I can, because of my head. We've already discussed that too, because I don't like it either.
And the second thing is, I think there are young pilots who bring a lot of creativity, who think differently. And then I move forward somehow. And the whole harness construction is exciting for me in the sense that it still has to do with paragliding, with development. And the best point is actually that on the harness itself, you can sew, try out, cut away, sew differently, and so on—much, much more than you can with the glider. You have much more of the craft, in that sense, that you can practice.
You sit at the sewing machine, you go to the computer, you do something there. That is actually, in combination with the ambition to make a good product, the best way to do it at the moment. What
is it actually harder nowadays to design a glider from scratch or a harness from scratch, where each is supposed to be good?
I'd say designing paragliders is like reading coffee grounds.
From that perspective, I think it's harder to build a good glider from scratch.
Yes, it's very difficult to say. I think it depends extremely on which category you want to build a harness in. That also depends a lot. I think a seat harness in the sense of
simple, compact products like the Parakite harnesses, that's rather easier. It's also a challenge to make sure everything fits really well and that every body fits in comfortably. And a competition harness that performs great, with a thin protector that provides good protection and so on, that's the ultimate challenge.
Is there anything regarding harnesses or a specific model where you could say, "Michael designed that"?
Not yet.
No, I'm not at the point where I've finished a product, a harness. Right now, I'm mainly working on the backpack for the Whiteless 2. That would actually be the first product I've made. I'm curious to see what kind of feedback people have.
What is fascinating about constructing a backpack? I mean, basically, they always look similar, maybe with a slightly different design. What are the nuances you still have to work on then?
The basic principle is that the ergonomics of the back and the shoulder straps, combined with the weight distribution, actually have to fit well. I already have the feeling that we had good products. We had an X-Alps backpack where I'd actually say, if you use the X-Alps backpack together with our X-Alps material, which has the same proportions as always, the backpack is perfect. There isn't really a point where I would say we should change it, in our opinion, for us.
And that's the challenge for me now, building a Weightless backpack where you basically say the same thing, just with the option—so we also have the rolltop now, which just simplifies the whole volume thing. And I think we already have many options where you can say, now we can actually build a backpack that's basically always the same for gliders and short trips, but has the extra space at the top to take material with you or leave it behind. And the goal would actually be to make the X-Alps backpack suitable for the mass market.
And I hope we're on the right track there, or rather, I believe we are. Even though it's a simple piece of fabric, for me—for getting into 3D development as a whole—it's already very exciting, even if it is simple.
That means a harness developer starts out as a backpack builder and then slowly works their way into the whole subject, and eventually, you develop an entire harness.
Yeah, not necessarily. You actually start where the shoe pinches, let's say. For me, it was like this, because first—I said earlier, I've been involved in harness development for two years now—but actually, I've only been doing it since this spring.
mainly in harness construction. And before that, I just did smaller projects or simply provided support, and started with the backpacks because the backpacks are less complex. They're done faster. I'd say, I worked on a backpack for, not a week, but two or three days, then I was testing for two weeks, then a few more days on the backpack. Something like that. And that's how the backpack ended up with me. In that sense, at some point you have to learn how to build harnesses. And it's like with the buckles. You only learn it by building harnesses.
You have to start somewhere eventually.
Let's do a little topic jump towards the end. You also do these special photo projects with Adi Geisegger every now and then. One thing I noticed, I think you've actually flown through a tunnel with a paraglider. And if I saw it correctly, you even did it before the pedal.
Yeah, exactly. So the execution itself, that was before. Adi had the idea for a very long time. He actually originally wanted to do it with Chrigel a year earlier. But the weather, the timing, and all that weren't quite ideal. Then I was there with him, actually for another project. And then we just included that as well one morning.
How do you actually approach something like that? I mean, you look at the tunnel and say, oh, that should fit, and we're going to try it this morning. Or I mean, if I saw it correctly, you flew almost 70 meters through that tunnel.
Yeah, exactly. Right at the beginning, Adi measured the dimensions of the tunnel and basically knew, yeah, a glider will fit in there. We wanted to do it with a production glider. That was actually the challenge, doing the whole thing with the smallest P3, which was the 16er P3. Then one evening, or actually the evening before, we drove to the tunnel and set up the glider in there to see if it actually fits. If it fits inside. With the 16er P3, it was so tight that I said, no, that won't work, because I just need a certain amount of tolerance for flying in.
But we already had a 14er P3 back then, a prototype, which is actually basically the same as the one in the P4 series now. So, besides the design, not much actually changed. It was basically how we already built it back then. And that's why we said, yeah, let's do it with that one. And it actually fit in relatively well. For me, the important thing was that if the glider fits into the hole, then it also fits back out. Because then it's a different matter of flying skill, I'd say, or the flying stuff that I have to do.
And then tomorrow I ran up to the launch site for the first attempt. Actually, without any big expectations, I just flew into the tunnel. Not with any great speed or anything like that. Not with the intent to fly there. By then, I basically knew that it was possible. I can fly relatively well on the centerline, and if I'm on the centerline when I hit the ground, I can fly through it. That's how I did it. The second flight—so the first flight was about halfway—the second flight went almost to the very end of the tunnel.
I'm not entirely sure if Adi missed the timing for the photo a bit there.
He said so nicely, all good things come in threes. That's why I went up again and actually knew exactly what I had to do. That was funny. I didn't really feel it on the second attempt. But on the third flight, I came in accelerated with more energy, plus a bit of a light wingover towards the tunnel entrance. And then I had the impression that the glider stabilized itself in the tunnel with more speed. And it felt like I flew through the tunnel like I was on rails. I also had the impression that the glider had more power. When flying out, there was a short lift.
And then I didn't actually fly very far out of the tunnel. Maybe about 15 meters.
So like a tunnel effect, basically a ground effect, but one where the entire profile is being flowed around a bit differently.
Yeah, exactly. But we then said that was good enough. The radio captured the photo perfectly. So we left it at three flights. That's why I couldn't confirm it. It would actually be interesting to fly it again. To see if it really is like that or if it was just a coincidence.
So a project like that, you say as a test pilot, do you have respect? How much respect do you have for flying into a tunnel like that?
About the same amount.
I always think, when I'm a bit nervous, I need that. If I'm not nervous at all, if I feel like everything is fine, then it's either really easy or I have to think about what's being overlooked. If I notice that I have a certain amount of tension—it's actually like that with the maneuvers too—then I'm also focused and basically know what I need to do.
Adi then said, actually, how do you say in German,
we'll just... it's crazy, just flying into the tunnel without, yeah, there's not much space and so on, but for me it wasn't an issue because I knew the glider fits in there; if I'm on the centerline and on the ground, then nothing can go wrong. And then the nervousness is actually just about hitting the line on the ground, if I do that and if it works. Even before the tunnel, I have to be on the centerline and then the rest is basically just flying straight ahead.
But you don't have to worry about a small gust of wind coming along and pushing them a bit to the side, making you hit the edge of the tunnel or something like that?
The weather is, of course, always a recurring factor in projects like these.
a huge factor, and you have to pick the conditions so that you can rule out these factors. And that morning, it was really great, very calm. No wind, nothing. That wasn't actually an issue.
Which also shows again that risk always depends a lot on the external
...conditions. Yes, exactly, that's how it is. Paragliding in general is also very dependent on how dangerous it is, what the weather is like when you fly, and what kind of conditions you have. It's the same with these projects.
Which project would you still like to realize? Do you have any dream ideas where you say, "I'd love to do that sometime"?
Not a specific project that's, let's say, currently tangible. More like something tangible, but in my head, there's the Morning Glory in Australia and there's this one hang glider pilot...
Johnny Duran, I don't remember exactly which one, flew along the cloud with the glider. And that already looks amazing. So, flying the Morning Glory with a paraglider, that would be something I'd have in my dreams.
Would that even be possible given the wind conditions that occur for a Morning Glory like that? I don't know right now, but I also mean to have read that those were wind speeds where you can still do it well with the kite, but it probably isn't possible at all with the paraglider. Yes, that is I believe
I think the problem is that we're actually too slow there with a normal paraglider. I think it might be doable with parakites. Not "maybe" it would be—it would definitely be doable—but the difficulty of getting up there with a parakite is completely different, anyway, just like with the paraglider.
You have to haul yourself up or get dragged up somehow. Exactly. Just to get there.
But then there are completely different challenges there with the... the Morning Glory goes over an area where you'd rather not land. Supposedly it's quite remote and there's a lot of wildlife, so it's something you'd have to plan very well and then also need a lot of luck with the execution. But you asked what I...
as a dream. That would be a great picture—Michael Maurer, the conqueror of the Morning Glory, or Sora at the Morning Glory.
Let's just leave that image for now. These days, you could just say, I'll throw the AI at it and say, dear PhotoAI, build me a photo of Michael Maurer sorted out before the Morning Glory. You could probably realize that more easily than in real life. But I'm curious to see if you might do it at some point. If you do, we'll see each other here again. Then you can tell me what it was like. Otherwise, thanks a lot for telling me about all sorts of things regarding your life and your existence as a test pilot. Super interesting. Thank you. And have continued fun, success, many more second places, and then a first place in between as well. I'll make sure that it continues to be fun no matter what.
Yeah, thank you. Thanks for letting me be your guest and for the chance to talk about the Morning Glory story.
Yeah, great. I'd love to. Did
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