194. Parakites - Beni Kälin

I always say, to really understand paragliding, you have to be out there at 40, 50 meters high on the ridge and have an awesome session, feeling like you could catch a tailwind. Only then do you truly realize what paragliders are actually capable of.

Podz-Glidz, the Lu-Glidz podcast.

Stories from the cosmos of

paragliding. Today with... Beni Kälin. And I am... Lucian Haas.

A little over four years ago, the Flair Mustache hit the market as the first so-called parakite. It brought a completely new dynamic to the paragliding scene. On one hand, looking at the flying itself: parakites expand the wind window by allowing you to soar safely with fabric sails. And because of their unique shape for angle-of-attack control, they enable flight maneuvers that a classic paraglider can't master. This goes all the way to the extreme. On the other hand, parakites have also sparked quite a bit of movement in the paraglider market. More and more manufacturers are jumping on this bandwagon and trying to grab a piece of the pie with their own designs. This shows that parakites aren't a passing trend, but a new form of flying that is here to stay.

That's why it's so important to understand what's really behind it. That's why, for this episode 194 of Podz-Glidz... I invited Beni Kälin for a deep talk exclusively about Parakites. He has followed the development from the very beginning, has flown almost all the models on the market himself, and knows very well where the fun and where the risks of this glider category lie. This episode has turned out to be quite long, but for everyone who is interested in Parakiting, I can only recommend it—stay tuned. You're about to hear a particularly rich treasure trove of information.

By the way, I can use these kinds of behind-the-scenes conversations for you. I only present them because there are supporters who financially support my work on the podcast and blog. Why don't you join in? You can find out how it works on the paragliding blog Blueglides, specifically on the Support page.

Beni, I actually took another look earlier and saw that you were already on the podcast six years ago. Back then, we mostly just talked about speed gliding, and parakites didn't even exist yet—at least not as an official product. When was the first time you actually flew with something like a kite? Good

Question. I think 2016 or 2017. Oh, so still

much earlier.

Yeah, I definitely spent a lot of time riding these Ozone R1 Race kites on the water and then eventually started flying them at the dune, just a meter above the ground. And I still remember, June 19, 2018.

I collapsed the thing over Lake Schwarzsee in Switzerland and fell down. Without a glider, I broke my back in the lake. I got really lucky there, and that was my last flight on a kite.

And the thing with the paragliders at Flair, I think that only started back in 2019.

But the Flair Moustache didn't come out until early 2022, so that was three years later. How did you end up joining Flair back then?

How was your development of the Moustache, and how were you involved in it?

As I said, I flew around with these Ozone R1 kites a lot. They're actually like a Bandit today, if you can imagine that. With a 7 stretch, many cells, a lot of power, and especially just on the dune in France, in the Pila, a meter above the ground. So mega cautious, because it is a kite, and I approached it very slowly, really flew it a lot in strong conditions. I then also did it at 60 km/h, where you couldn't do that with any other glider I had—and I also had small speedflies—where it could have flown at all, and then I also let other people try it, and simply everyone who hooked into it, who gathered the courage to fly with the thing, because the thing already looked very special.

I didn't adjust the curvature there; you basically pull the suspension lines together and then the thing becomes ultra round, it looks like a shark fin. That's very, very specific for kitesurfing. But everyone loved it, everyone who flew the thing loved it and was just totally thrilled, and I just saw, hey, so we need this, we have to have something like this as a paraglider that officially exists, so that we don't have to fly some random kites. And someone just told me that Skywalk had this project, they were already working on the development, that

The thing was called the Skycarver.

Originally, they had the idea for it. I think he was the first one to try it out a bit, I believe, back in 2011 or even 2014.

Well, really, yeah. I don't know when it started, but I only heard that they had this project and yeah, at some point I got in touch with them and just described my experiences a bit, told them what I'd done, showed videos of these kites and just raved about it, saying how enthusiastic I was. And how enthusiastic everyone else who flew them was. That was still before I crashed with the thing. And yeah, then they basically picked it up again. Benni Bölli then came to me in Switzerland with those old protos back then, presumably from Armin, he came over and we flew them together and flew down from the Amiswil or Hohwald launch site over to the Höhenmatte, because of the tandems.

Those were still closed-cell gliders, so the air goes in, there's a valve on it, and then it can't get back out. But I think those things were safe, but yeah, they just looked special and exactly, and then I and the other Benni, so Benni Bölli, and we brainstormed a bit, thought about what the thing had to be able to do, what was important, and so on. And yeah, Benni then started... Yeah. Building new protos again and so on, and that happened, but there was another year's break because he had to finish these Flysurfer Race Kites, these VMGs that they flew at the Olympics last year in Paris, and he was completely absorbed with that project, and that's why it was another year, basically, until he had time again to make new protos and so on.

But yeah, one day it was like, "Okay, there's a new proto." And then he immediately ordered three of them, and they all had a snout on them. Because he just thought it was funny and a cool idea, he just sewed on a mustache as a joke. Everyone thought it was cool, and that's why there was the mustache, yeah. But from this prototype, there were another one or two rounds, and we really tried a lot for a long time. There were actually quite a few pre-series gliders that many pilots flew in all sorts of conditions. We did a lot of Spieflein with it, others were a lot of Küstensohren and so on, until the official sale started in 2022.

So, we took our time and really finished the thing and tested it thoroughly, instead of just throwing it onto the market to see if it worked or not.

When the Moustache came out, many people had it, I think Skywalk even had it in their ads. But I then picked it up on my blog too. I wrote about the Parakite revolution there. Does that term even hold up in your view? Can we really talk about a revolution with the Parakite?

From my perspective, definitely, yes. I mean, a parakite isn't going to replace a paraglider for thermals and cross-country flying, in my opinion. But for soaring on the coast, there's really no reason for me to still do that with a paraglider. So that's just a no-brainer. It's built exactly for that.

At the beginning, it's more like people feel that parakites are dangerous and all that. But I think in 10, 20 years, it'll be exactly the opposite—that people think coastal soaring in strong winds with a paraglider is tricky, and if the wind picks up, it flies backwards. I think that'll flip eventually. I think anyone who's flown a parakite on the coast with the right size can confirm that; you experience it well. It's simply built for that. It's more intuitive, easier, and also safer. Yes, before

Now that we're talking about these specialties in flying, maybe you could briefly explain it for everyone. I assume there are some people listening who have heard the term paraglider before, but don't really know what's actually behind it or anything. So, what actually makes a paraglider unique? Or rather, where are the differences between a paraglider and a glider? Well, the main difference, I'd say right now,

is the harness or the harness is built in such a way that you actually have the speed bar integrated into the brakes. So when you go hands up, the glider accelerates, and quite a bit, rather a tad more than a paraglider. And when you pull the brakes, at some point around 50, 60 centimeters of pull, you're back in the best glide, where A, B, C harnesses are then the same length. And only from the point of best glide, if you pull the brake even deeper, does the exit edge, the brake line, get pulled along. And there you might have another 20 centimeters of brake travel, you're proud of that.

And there you might have another 20 centimeters of brake travel, and then you're proud. So, basically, you can access the entire speed range from stall to top speed just through the brakes. Now, that sounds completely dangerous at first—if you go hands up, you're fully accelerated. And that's a fact, it's exactly how it is that you're fully accelerated. And so that it's not brutally dangerous, in my opinion, the gliders just need enough stability. You have a very stable reflex profile, so you can actually fly relaxed with hands up through the transitions without constantly having to fear a collapse. So if you're flying around fully accelerated with a C or the glider, then you have to fly actively.

If you don't fly actively, the thing will collapse pretty quickly. With a Parakite, it's different. It handles a lot of full acceleration. That

So I don't have to fly actively with the Parakite? It does everything on its own?

In normal soaring conditions, where it's still fun, like soaring close to the ground, you actually almost don't have to fly actively. Yes, very little. Of course, it depends on the conditions. At some point, everything collapses and then it wants to be flown actively. But I'll say now, in 90% of the conditions, you don't need to fly actively. You do it automatically because it's a reflex. From the paraglider, you're used to pulling on it. And it also feels better when the lines go slack when you pull. It's simply a reflex that you and I surely have too. But I deliberately left that out for an hour last year in Denmark while testing with the Bandit. Actually, I deliberately did the opposite for a whole hour. I concentrated like crazy and every time the lines went slack, I put my hands up instead of pulling.

And it feels completely wrong, but it hasn't even collapsed.

Why don't they collapse? You just used the term reflex. Maybe you could explain that again briefly.

Yes, that's just a type of profile, which is used more and more in paragliders as they get longer. These are simply more stable profiles. So basically, you can explain it quite simply. A paraglider, the profile, when the lines sag, when the paraglider loses line tension, whether on the ground or in the air, if all the lines simply sag, then it's a normal paraglider profile. Then it's a normal paraglider profile. And it collapses. So, in other words, the leading edge wants to go down. It has this tendency to go downwards. So it collapses and folds in. And then there are neutral profiles, which basically stay... And the reflex profiles, there the leading edge always wants to go up. So as soon as the lines sag, it pulls the nose up instead of down.

And that's a coefficient. It's called CM. And you can't put many reflexe in there. You can put a lot of reflexe in. Those are all pros and cons. But basically, it's actually the tendency of the glider without line tension. What does the leading edge do? Does it want to go down or up? Simply put. And on a paraglider, if the B doesn't have tension, if the B actually quasi loses tension, right? If it doesn't quasi go between A and B with the lines. If the geometry creates an angle of attack, then it doesn't create lift, but instead it just collapses. And that's different with the Parakite. With kites too. Every kite you take for snowkiting or kitefoiling, you can just let go of the bar, the control bar, leave the zenith standing, and it can then overshoot, go behind you, and then it just really floats back without making a front flap.

And that's also the advantage with a Parakite. So if it overshoots you on the ground and in the air too, it basically just floats back again, right?

Now, maybe it's oversimplified, but what I do with the brakes at the back of the paraglider to increase the angle of attack again—and thus get tension back on a relaxed line with that higher angle of attack—the Parakite does by lifting its nose up at the front.

Yeah exactly, it does that pretty much on its own. So it's like it has an autopilot integrated, right? For me, Reflex is like a driving aid in a car, you know, like ABS. It's always there and actually helps you constantly. You can fly and rely on Reflex without having to fly actively, but you don't necessarily have to if it has enough Reflex, because the leading edge always goes up again when the lines go slack, right? Hm. If you have enough speed and the trim, the profile, and everything else is right, or at least to a certain extent. At some point, if you're flying into the lee at 40 km wind while soaring, then it has its limits and the wing will collapse, clearly.

But I'd say, in these normal soaring conditions where it's still fun to fly close to the ground, it works surprisingly well without active flying on a safe, stable parakite. Of course, it also depends a bit on the wing loading. If I'm flying at 70 kg and 26 km/h, it'll definitely collapse sooner than if I had a 13er, clearly. Maybe one more advantage we haven't discussed yet is this lift. That doesn't sound like a huge advantage at first—that you can put your hands up and you're accelerated. Then someone says, well, I can just press the foot speed bar. Fair point, you can. But the big, big advantage of these kite-risers,

how do you say, with these harness straps on the parakites, is that you can accelerate the glider while standing on the ground at takeoff without it collapsing. Try pulling up a two-liner on the ground while accelerating at 50 km/h. You can't do that, right? You can't pull up and accelerate at the same time. Because you can already accelerate the glider while standing on the ground, it generates much less lift and doesn't actually pull you away at all. So it only pulls you away on the ground if you pull on it, right? Now, when we do ground handling with beginners in high wind, I always say, don't let the handles loop. Just hold them, and in an emergency, if you fall over, lose control, and it's lying on its back and pulling you with it, just let go, hands off.

And when people do that, it works. No one gets pulled across the field. It's really amazing.

That means the glider just realigns itself over the pilot lying on the ground and says, "Hey, you've let go of everything, here I am, I can't do anything else."

Yeah, or it just falls to the ground and stays there, but it simply doesn't develop any power, right? So it's just depowered in that sense, right? I mean, with a paraglider, for example, there's that thing during ground handling where you pull it up, then it overshoots, does a front collapse, falls back into the power zone, and then the thing opens again and then it really tears away because you have a whole surface area in the wind. The parakite doesn't actually do that kind of stuff. If you let go, then, it might collapse and pull for a meter or so, but if you let go of your fingers, then it doesn't pull anymore either, right? The stupidest thing is when you have a wingtip twist. If you pull up in high wind with a big wingtip twist and you try to counter it, then of course you have a lot of resistance on both sides, a lot of surface area, then it pulls you away too.

But otherwise, it's really amazing how the thing doesn't pull you in high winds as long as you're not pulling on it. That

That sounds pretty tempting, I'd say. Why aren't paragliders just built like that then? It sounds like it's just a great safety feature.

Yeah, it is. From my perspective, it doesn't make much sense for paragliding because you have very long lines; you're not extremely directly connected to the glider. You can fly in thermals, and with the larger ones, it's even better than with the small ones, but it's a completely different feeling—you're somehow differently connected to the glider. When you fly a paraglider, you have full authority over the brakes, or with a two-liner, over the B-risers. If you want to push the glider forward, you can brake it back 100%, you're completely in charge. But with a Parakite, first of all, you have to pull down relatively far, which means your hands are positioned rather lower down.

and you have to constantly pull; if you release or your hands are too high, the thing accelerates and you get a lot more sink. So you have to pull down so far for the slightest amount of sink that it's actually exhausting, and it also has more power, more brake pressure. So that means it's very tiring, and what prevents the glider from shooting forward—because it always shoots forward in turbulence, no matter what glider—is that you have to pull down so far on the Parakite to get the brake line to pull. So the tension on the leading edge really stops the glider from shooting forward. And from the moment the brake line is tensioned, you might have 20 cm to the stall point on a good Parakite, and maybe only 5 cm on a less good one.

So the range where the brake line engages until it stalls is extremely short. And personally, it bothers me; I feel like I'm always just before a collapse or just before a stall because that range is just so short, to put it hyperbolically. Can you imagine that? Does that make sense?

I'll try to explain that again in my own words. You said that the first 60 cm you pull on the brake, going from completely loose to contact, that at some point the brake edge also starts to deform. That really only changes the angle of attack of the entire profile at first. Exactly, there

Are you only pulling the B and C line?

down. And only when you've pulled it that far to neutral, the entire rigging is designed so that the brake trailing edge only comes under tension then. Exactly, right, yeah. And then you pull it down further, but then this whole profile and everything else is such that, from that neutral point downwards, you really only have a maximum of 10, 15, 20 cm left that you can pull. And then do you release it or pull it into a deep stall or what happens?

That, in turn, is very relaxed. So, with the parakites through these kite racers, because you're always pulling the B and C lines along when you pull down the exit edge, you almost never get them into a tailglide. They basically only do deep stall. It depends a bit on the setting and the parakite itself, but it's not really possible to do a nice tailglide. They mostly just do deep stall. But it's actually much safer, because the chance of the glider catching air again while flying backwards and absorbing so much energy that you fall into the canopy is much lower. Because you never fly backwards, I think the chance of falling into your own glider is significantly smaller than with a flight canopy.

And besides, the glider itself has a tendency to right itself at the front. So it probably doesn't want to dive way out in front of you at all; instead, once you've let go, the canopy pulls back up with that reflex effect and doesn't drop down that far in front of you, right? I could imagine that.

Exactly, if you, right, if you let it shoot completely with hands up, if you really let go completely, then it has more reflex and it also refills a bit more slowly, which tends to dampen the shooting. But if you stay in best glide and only release a little from the stall, then it can shoot quite a bit, because in best glide there's actually almost no reflex left, or no reflex at all, and then you can manage to have the glider shoot forward extremely and then also collapse or something. But if you're hands up, it's exactly as you say, the reflex dampens the shooting moment, right?

That means you'd actually have to react counterintuitively to the paraglider compared to the glider. So if the glider shoots forward, it means, okay, pull the brake properly and firmly once, stop it, and then slowly let go again so you get back into normal flight. And with the parakite, you'd have to say, ideally, you'd say, shoot the hands way up so that it stops on its own, or should you still work with the brakes there?

No, well, you actually can, just let the hands go completely up and let the thing shoot.

I don't like doing it at all because you're basically relying on the glider. You have to hope that it doesn't shoot forward or shoots less, or that it doesn't collapse in front of you. And as pilots, we're all used to taking responsibility for ourselves and maintaining control, right? Not just relying on the equipment. And if you just let it shoot forward completely with your hands up, you're relying on the equipment.

But actually, it usually works. But it does make you a bit scared. I've also seen videos where people deliberately did some maneuvers and the Parakite then shot forward. And like you say, the reflex from paragliding is, oh, the glider is shooting forward, then they go to the brake, but they don't brake enough to actually stop the glider, they just brake just enough to take the reflex out but the shooting isn't really stopped yet, and because of that, they get a collapse because they braked. If they had just kept their hands up, nothing would have happened. If they had braked really hard, nothing would have happened either, right? But that middle ground...

was just stupid. That's actually a bit mean. So if you're coming from paragliding and maybe aren't used to your gliders having you quickly pull through under your ass when you brake properly, but instead you're like, yeah, I usually get it stopped if I pull 40 or 50 centimeters, then you do the same with your parakite and you're right in that range where you say, okay, you've pulled out the reflex profile and now it shoots forward quite a bit.

In that exact example, it's like that. But people are always afraid of it and think, oh, I have to switch over and a parakite is the exact opposite, I have to do everything differently. That's not true. A parakite only collapses when it luffs from the angle where a paraglider would collapse. You can let a parakite luff 90 degrees if your hands are up, it won't collapse. And a paraglider, I'll say, it might collapse from about 60 degrees. And a parakite also only collapses at 60 degrees if you pull and do it wrong. Before that, it doesn't collapse. It doesn't collapse any sooner than a paraglider, it just collapses later. So it's not that tragic, but yeah, in extreme cases, you can make it collapse by braking.

But only if it's way ahead of the pilot. So when thermal flying, if it's over the head—sorry, when thermal flying, if it's over the head or flying in turbulent air, normal active flying, stopping the forward surge, keeping the glider over the pilot, pulling when the lines go soft, it's all exactly the same; it just feels different because the brake pressure and the brake travel are longer, etc. But actually, the flights are exactly the same.

Would you say, if you hear it like this, that on average, the paraglider is safer in terms of its reactions than a paraglider?

Now, after four years of paragliding? Yes, definitely, yeah. We just released this Scout with Flair, the first truly complete beginner paraglider, with low aspect ratio, more of a thicker profile, and I tried to pull the 22 into a tailglide, you know, to stall it completely, but as I said, it doesn't do a tailglide, it just stays above you in a deep stall. It might go backwards a bit, that's hard to say, but basically it's just in a deep stall, and at any moment you can just put your hands up, and the thing shoots forward a bit, but not so far forward that it would somehow collapse or do anything else bad.

So that reminded me of my parachute training again. When skydiving, you do Stalls and head-down turns during the first jumps, which would be completely dangerous with a paraglider. Doing full Stalls and frills during the first high flights would be an absolute no-go. On this Scout 22, I felt a bit like I was skydiving; I didn't try any frills, but I could just pull and release whenever I wanted during a Stall, and nothing happened. Regardless of the timing, it was extremely forgiving. And the other thing that's also super safe is the reflex profile with this collapse stability—sure, collapses can happen, every paraglider can collapse, clearly, but statistically speaking, far fewer accidents happen because of collapses with paragliders than with paragliders.

You can definitely say that, I think, right? So, all things considered, I think a paraglider is actually super safe, yeah.

That means the uncertainty is probably mainly that you fly so close to the ground, and if you have a collapse, it can quickly turn into a hard impact, namely that you slam full-on into the ground with it.

Definitely, I'm not saying that no accidents happen, but these things fly fast and they're just intuitive, and I think the biggest danger is that people just get overconfident very quickly, right? And if you're flying with your hands up, accelerating at 60 km/h, and then you have a tailwind at the dune, you can quickly hit 80, or you can quickly reach a hundred coming out of a turn. And if you also fly into someone or get stuck somewhere, there's obviously a lot of energy involved and then it hurts very quickly. And like you said, a collapse near the ground is basically always dangerous because it's simply immediate proximity to the ground, right? And in cross-country flying, when you have a bit of altitude, not every collapse has to be equally dramatic, right?

What Parakites can do that gliders can't, which might also involve a certain risk, is that if you let them out completely, you can pick up a lot of momentum; then they dive straight down, gain speed, and if you pull the brake again—or not all the way, but set it properly again—it converts that speed back into altitude very strongly. So you can really fly in three dimensions, whereas a glider mostly just glides downwards; with a few tricks, some can gain a bit more altitude, but Parakites do that much, much more, so that you can actually do a landed flight or something like that with such a thing. But with that, you're also naturally perhaps less predictable to others in terms of your flight path, or you might climb somewhere without checking if someone is flying 30 meters or 20 meters higher behind you, and you suddenly fly into their path.

So, flying together with others, would you say that's perhaps a bit riskier with paragliders than with classic gliders?

Definitely, yes. You're seeing that exactly right, aren't you? It's always the case when people are out there at different speeds that it just becomes problematic; it's exactly the same on the road, isn't it? If everyone drives at the same speed, it's actually not a problem. But if some feel like they have to go 200 km/h and others only 80 km/h, then it just gets very difficult. And that's actually exactly the case when flying with parakites if there are still paragliders in the air, right? But even if it's only parakite pilots and there are too many in the air, it quickly becomes difficult because everyone flies faster, everyone wants to fly close to the ground, everyone wants that three-dimensional flying, just to live it out. I do too, I count myself among them.

So you have to keep your head on a swivel and pay close attention, because yeah, collisions near the ground are also shitty.

You said earlier that parakites are mainly intended for soaring. Are there other types of flying where you'd say a parakite also has advantages, or is it that once you move into other areas—like classic paragliding, well, not gliders now—but as soon as you start saying, I want to do some XC, fly thermals, or something like that, would you say a parakite is simply out of place, or is it also possible, but just much nicer with a paraglider? And why?

Yes, it's definitely very useful everywhere you fly close to the ground—meaning in speedflying or proximity flying, it's mega useful. And parakites are certainly making their mark there. They fly longer, however, less so in normal speedflying, because for example, with this flairline,

...where a 15er flies just as fast and just as steeply as an 11er from a classic speedflyer. So, to fly at the same speed, you actually have to take a glider that is four square meters smaller. And that one, in turn, is more demanding to launch and land, has a lower glide ratio, a smaller operating range, and so on. So there, it's clearly very useful. There's also paramotor flying, a paramotor glider from Flair—so a parakite specifically for paramotor flying. And there, especially just for flying close to the ground, again for this proximity flying with the motor close to the ground, it doesn't make sense if you want to fly long distances and do pleasure flights and stuff in the paramotor; then it's the wrong glider.

But for this dynamic, fast flying close to the ground, it works great with it, right? Why is it the wrong glider for people doing longer flights? Well, depending on the motor you have, you have to give it full throttle just to fly level at all. That means if you only fly at half throttle, you sink because the thing is so fast. Then you need a ton of fuel if you want to fly at full throttle all the time. You have to, because it's super noisy and it's not that relaxed either. And if you want to do a pleasure flight, you don't want to be at full throttle the whole time. It's supposed to be a pleasure flight and not a full-throttle flight, right? Then, with a paraglider, you can basically just release the speed bar, close the trimmers and, let's just say, fly along comfortably with low RPM, right?

Without having to fly at full throttle, right? And with the ones, for example, the Flair Parakites, there's no system where you could hook the brake handles in so that the thing flies in trim. There are other manufacturers who have handles on the Parakite, these Fidlock magnetic clips, which many paragliders have nowadays too, where you can pull the brake handle out downwards, but not upwards or straight out. You can push it straight in, but you can only take it out by pulling down. And there are some Parakite manufacturers who have put this Fidlock on, and then theoretically when soaring or whatever, or with a glider, you can hook the handles in there on the Parakite and then the thing actually flies with the best glide.

Personally, I would never dare to do that as a manufacturer, because just imagine someone doing that close to the ground and such a magnet comes loose—then the thing goes into a spiral. One side accelerates fully, the other is gliding perfectly, and you'll enter a spiral pretty quickly. And if you as a pilot don't react fast enough and pull that side or release it, you'll crash immediately.

That's why so many people always ask, "Yeah, but soaring sucks because you always have to hold it and can never relax and all that." Well, that's what it's built for. It's built for sporty flying, and it's not so strenuous that you can't hold it. But yeah, maybe someone will eventually figure out a really safe system for how you can hook it up so that it definitely doesn't unhook accidentally. I personally would be very careful with that. But

If you had such a system, then theoretically you could maybe even say you can fly cross-country with Parakites, where you could say, I don't have to hold it in the best glide for hours, but can just hook it up accordingly or something, and can say, I can even just grab my sandwich if I want to eat something in between, which might be difficult with a classic Parakite that you can't hook up. Because once you let something go, it immediately goes into full speed.

Yes, absolutely. Technically, that would be possible. You would just have to attach an additional brake handle to the brake lines, so that once you've hooked up the main brake handle of the parakite, you reach up and use the control lines that go through the leading edge for thermals. So, it's definitely conceivable. Yes, absolutely. And yeah, I think one day someone will build it and I believe it will work. But I think if you look at paraglider development, it's not that people build paragliders that are supposed to do as much as possible, but paragliders are becoming increasingly specific, right? I mean, in the past, there were just thermals gliders.

Now there are speedflyers, paramotors, parakites, Akroschirme, normal speedflyers, miniwings, two-liners. The range is getting bigger and bigger. That's why I think development is moving more towards the specific. But who knows, yeah.

It might also depend a bit on how much money people still have at some point. Whether they can afford six gliders because they say, I have six different hobbies. One hobby is called soaring, the other is called cross-country flying, the next is called mountain glider or I don't know what. And you need a glider every time. But if you're always spending 2-3 thousand, or depending on what kind of glider it costs, up to 4,000 euros or francs or whatever, you have to be able to afford that first. Maybe at some point it'll be the egg-laying woolly milk cow again, what's it called, egg milk wool, no, egg woolly milk cow.

The ultimate all-in-one solution. That was it.

That's why it's being asked about as a glider again. Absolutely, yes. Now, parakites, they're often called that too, these are the gliders for stronger wind because they simply have this larger speed window. Here in our area now, I could also imagine that partly it was similar in Switzerland, or something like that, you notice it, there are many more days, I don't know if it's related to climate change or something, there are sometimes more days with stronger wind. And where it's also just thermal compensation winds during the day, maybe, because it was correspondingly hot and then the thermals form, or rather valley winds form much more strongly in the Alps, if you look in there, that's also something where you would say, parakites, they're coming out right now and maybe that's the way to build gliders, the way we ultimately need them for the times of climate change, with more

Wind? I don't think so, because, as I said, thermal flying with these kite-style wings, for me personally, it works, but it doesn't feel that good. I don't feel like I have the same control as I do with a paraglider using just normal brakes. And the thing about Parakites having a larger speed range—that's actually not true at all. If you take an Enzo, the smallest Enzo, the Enzo 3 from Ozone in XXS, I have one of those, it flies at about 5-67 km/h with my 70 kilos. If I take a Flair Bandit, then it's effectively 1-2 km/h slower. And the stall speed of the Enzo is probably also a bit lower than that of the Parakite,

from the Bandit, for example.

Okay, that defines the speed window. But the question is, at what speeds do you even dare to launch and then fly in order to be able to react to it. And there's maybe something where you'd say, okay, with my Parakite I'd still dare at 30, 35, maybe—depending on what kind of wing it is and how experienced you are, I'd even dare to launch at 40. You probably wouldn't do that at all with the Enzo, because the risk of being pulled backward, just during the launch alone, is huge.

Exactly, that's exactly the point I was explaining earlier. You can accelerate the Parakite right at the start. You can't accelerate the Enzo while standing on the ground. It pulls you away first, you fly backwards, and then logically you can't accelerate anymore. That's one advantage. And the other advantage is that Parakites have more reflex than, for example, an Enzo. They are simply significantly more stable at full throttle. You don't have to fly as brutally actively as you do with the Enzo, where you already have to be careful. There are certainly conditions where you can fly a Parakite relaxed, and with a glider—with a two-seater, if someone has it really well under control and dares to, they can still fly it there too. But that is definitely very demanding, and you really have to be a good pilot to keep that thing open.

And with the Parakite, you could say, exaggeratedly, almost hang a beginner on it, and they can just play around a bit there

mess around. Back to climate change. My idea wasn't that you say, okay, I'm taking the Parakite because it has a larger speed window as such, but that you can still safely launch or safely fly in wind speeds where you might not fly with a classic paraglider anymore. And if you have conditions where you have much stronger wind, much stronger valley wind conditions, where you as a paraglider pilot might say, under these conditions I actually don't want to get into the air in these high wind conditions because thermal flying isn't fun there either or I'm constantly getting lee effects somewhere. But I'd like to fly and then I can still say, okay, I'll find the suitable valley wind slope. The wind might be showing 30, 40 km/h there, but with my Parakite, I can go fly there.

And that basically opens up, shifts the flight window so that you can fly at those speeds, but you're also practicing a different kind of flying.

Absolutely, that's possible, definitely. So you can fly with a parakite in conditions where it becomes very demanding to impossible with a paraglider. And with the parakite, you can still do that, right? But it's important for me to add here that at sea, wind and high winds are relatively easy to predict, right? The higher the waves, the more turbulent, otherwise it's just straightforward. And calm. But in the Alps, in the mountains, it becomes very complicated, right? And if you then fly into a lee at 40, 50 km/h because you don't know any better than that there's a lee there.

And we all know, every cross-country pilot has flown into a valley wind lee somewhere in the mountains at least once or twice, especially as a beginner, where they just didn't realize there was a lee there, right? And if that happens to you as a paraglider pilot in 50 km/h winds, and you fly into a lee, you'll probably collapse the glider, right? So, it's possible, you can fly in stronger wind conditions, absolutely. And the flying itself doesn't have to be difficult. But my experience is that assessing the conditions in the mountains—is it still safe? Is it turbulent?

Does it stay that way? Or does it change? That's already demanding. Even for me. We've been looking for some new spots in our mountains for soaring, for paragliding with skis in the winter too. For me, the coolest thing is always the combination with skis. You can kite and soar at the same time. And it can be very demanding at times to properly assess whether the conditions are safe or not, right?

Speaking of demanding. Let's talk a bit about the pilot requirements. How much paraglider experience do you need to dare to fly a parakite, let's say? And what additional skills might I need to fly a parakite safely?

I'd say it depends heavily on what size Parakite you're flying. Whether you're trying out a 26er Moustache for the first time or going straight for a 13er Moustache, that's obviously a world of difference. And the other thing is the location—where you're doing it. If you're trying it for the first time somewhere by the sea, on a nice sand dune where the wind is coming in at 90 degrees, nice and laminar, and there are no rocks anywhere for you to hit your head on and no trees, then that's a completely different story compared to going somewhere with a cliff, hardly any beach to land on, or bays and ridges, and the wind is coming from the front-diagonal and so on.

It makes a huge difference, but it actually goes as far as you being able to learn to fly directly on the parakite. They do that in various places now, where you can learn on coastal shores directly on the parakite. And the instructors also say that it's easier—people make faster progress on the parakite if they start with a paraglider. It also makes sense if you think about it, because ground handling with a paraglider is demanding, because if that thing moves forward even half a meter, it collapses immediately. And by the time you notice that the thing is moving forward, you've had to practice for a few hours. But the parakite just moves forward and doesn't collapse.

Then you basically just have to steer left and right. So that makes it massively easier.

But isn't it sensible to learn from the start that your glider can collapse? I can well imagine if you have one of those super simple parakites that basically doesn't collapse, and you pull it up and it shoots forward just a little bit, but then stops right in front of you and just sits there like, no problem. That you... yeah, then maybe you underestimate the risk of flying with those pieces of cloth over a cliff a bit more.

Yeah, I think so, yeah. I mean, it's definitely true that with parakites you get the impression that everything is super easy and super safe if you don't know the other stuff, right? Does it need to be? You know, there are people who aren't interested in paragliding. That's why they haven't done it for the last 30 years. But parakites, they're interested in that, they think it's cool. That's what they want. And that's why they're doing it now. From my point of view, I mean, a complete pilot can do as much as possible. They can fly cross-country, they can do high-wind soaring, they've done a lot of ground handling, they can do Akrofliegen. Sure, it's an ideal if you can do everything. You don't fly Akro either. And yet you can surely fly thermals. Or am I wrong, are you an Akropilot?

No. Good. So I do a few wing-overs and then it stops again.

Yeah, yeah. Well, you know, it's always the question: do you need that for kiting? No, I don't think you do. If he eventually switches to a paraglider, clearly, then he should do some training. He should get proper instruction. Maybe he doesn't have to do everything exactly the same, the same steps as a paraglider pilot, because he already knows a lot. But he has to learn the thing from scratch. It's a completely different piece of equipment that has different handling characteristics. And it also deserves respect and can definitely be chosen.

But as long as he only wants to fly paragliders, I think, yeah, I mean, it's not like with a paraglider—if I'm operating a paraglider on the ground, I brake it every time so it doesn't lunge forward. But if it lunges forward and there's enough wind, it usually just floats back again. But I also don't like it when it lunges forward all the time, because in that moment you lose a bit of control, right? Then you just have to hope that it comes back. And you don't do that—I mean, you don't let it happen in the first place if you don't have to. But it's nice if it doesn't just collapse for the beginners, right?

Maybe it's also a bit of a question of socialization. You come from paragliding, so it completely bothers you when something like that surges forward. I can imagine that maybe people who start directly with a parakite without knowing paragliding, and you wouldn't tell them, "Hey, you have to brake it so it stays above you," but instead you'd say, "Just pull it up, it'll surge forward a bit, but then it'll float back." And as a pilot, you'd experience from the very beginning, "Hey, it's not a problem at all," and with that weird feeling like, "Oh, there's a bit of slack in the lines," or something like that, you might not have any problem at all because you don't know it any other way.

Yeah, that can be. But that, you know, with overshooting, that only works with enough wind. Anyone who has ever tried to do parakite ground handling with little wind—say, 10 or 15 km in a slope—that is extremely demanding. So parakites in high wind, super easy. They're intuitive, they stay up and all that, it's much simpler. But with little wind, they shoot forward, and beginners often pull the brake, but the glider still shoots forward because they don't brake enough. Not far enough for the exit edge to catch, but just the B-C-E plane is pulled, right? And then the glider still shoots forward, but because there's so little wind, it doesn't float back and then collapses anyway. So parakite ground handling with little wind is extremely frustrating, I'd advise everyone against it.

You need at least 20 km/h of wind or more, and then things work really well.

What typical mistakes do beginners who come from paragliding make when switching to parakites? What has been your experience?

For example, they struggle in low wind, specifically because they don't brake enough. So, with parakites on the ground,

it only reacts and follows you properly when you have your hands low enough that the leading edge has tension. So, steering only with the angle of attack over the B-C plane on the ground with little wind doesn't work very well. The thing just does whatever. You notice you're not really in control. So, people on the ground often have their hands too high, and then the thing just does whatever. When flying actively in the air, if it gets really turbulent and they fly actively, people often pull down too, but only just enough until the brake catches, instead of another 10-15 cm. And in the best glide, when the brake just barely gets tension, that's actually when the Parakite is most unstable.

With this hesitant active flying, I'm saying it now, they actually make the thing more unstable. They'd be better off just keeping their hands up. Then the wing has reflexes, and those reflexes fly it actively for them. But because they pull back a little every time, but actually not enough to really support them—just enough for the brake to grip firmly—they make it unstable. I've seen that every now and then. Otherwise, when flying the Parakite, what you do with the outside brake is mega crucial. So you can fly flat turns, also flat circles, and then you just have to keep the outside brake pretty low. As soon as the outside brake goes up, the thing starts to dive, right?

And then you can fly extremely steep circles or turns, or also flat ones; that's definitely something you have to get used to. But one of the most difficult things, which many people struggle with—and I personally still have to put in effort, and struggled with at the beginning too—you have to imagine, you want to land perfectly while soaring. To land perfectly with the paraglider, you just go onto the brake, fly out of the lift somewhere, and wait until you basically sink down. Behind the lift, or next to the lift, whatever. Or you fly out of the lift and wait until you come down. With the paraglider, the stall speed is often higher than the wind speed. That means you can't just fly while stationary.

Unless there's a massive amount of wind. You can stay up there and soar and hold your position, no problem, but you can't just fly behind the lift and just wait until you sink down. Instead, you're always flying forward. And now you're flying forward again and then you get back into the lift. And then you're up again. And then you go back, try again, and it's the same game. And then you just keep flying forward because you just can't fly that slowly. The stall speed is higher. And then you come down again and keep getting back into the lift band. Now, of course, you can also just pull your hands up, then you dive down. And then you're at the bottom. But with momentum. You have a ton of forward speed. And now, what do you do? You brake.

Because with a paraglider, if you're fast, you brake during landing. And now it just flies you back up 5 meters. Then you're just as far out again. You do get down, but you have this energy, this speed that you can't get rid of. And then it takes you back up into the lift band and you're up again.

The trick is actually either you pump the thing down, because it tears away for a second every time. That sounds pretty sketchy right now, but this pumping is much safer, much more predictable on the parakite. You can even, if you have a good feel for it, if you have to go far down, the parakite...

you can just put it into a deep stall. Then you just consciously do a low-altitude deep stall with the thing. And there are parakites where you can dose the deep stall nicely. You haven't collapsed the whole glider, only parts of the glider are stolen. And then you can actually dose this sink rate from the deep stall completely. You can sink faster, more deep stall, or sink less. And then you just end the deep stall again 2-3 meters above the ground, pick up a bit of speed again, and then fly. Or the third variant is, you just come down with a lot of speed and then brake with your feet or your ass. And then you have to brake with your feet so that you don't overshoot again and end up in the lift band.

In the sand, that works well, of course. Then sometimes you have to brake with your feet, like a swan landing on the water. And you just try to somehow dissipate the energy on the ground. Because otherwise, the glider converts that energy into altitude.

I'm picturing an Albatross landing right now, where they come in stumbling a bit like that. Where you then flip over if you come in with too much speed. That's hardly fascinating. With all these, I'd say, "steering tricks" in quotation marks that one should learn for parakiting to know things like that, including the differences from a paraglider. What does it do differently? How does it react? Would you say that actually requires its own training or additional training, or do you do paragliding training and then get a parakite license, but that it's sensible not to just let people loose on those things, but that you'd regulate it a bit better?

I think if you make training mandatory, there will simply be far fewer accidents, and that's fundamentally sensible. An experienced pilot like you, I would immediately send you a parakite and send you to the dune in Holland, and I'm convinced you'd figure it out yourself incredibly fast, and those little tricks and things I've just explained to you, you'd find out pretty quickly on your own. It's really extremely intuitive for a paraglider pilot. My customers always say that too. I've already had hundreds of people hang a parakite for the first time and it usually goes really well, and people are constantly surprised by how intuitive and how easy it actually is.

But if people learn to fly on a Parakite without having paragliding training, they lack a certain basic understanding of aerodynamics, weather, and so on. And if they somehow build that up and get it, then I don't think that's a problem. If they're soaring at 50 km and have the skills to handle the glider in that wind and so on, great. But if they don't understand where the rotor is because they haven't learned it and hit a rotor at 50 km at a steep cliff with rocks, yeah, then it can simply be fatal. This year there was a fatal accident in England where the wind came a bit from the side and it was such a

cliff with bays and edges where there are rotors. And it was a bad jumper who maybe didn't have any paragliding experience at all. He didn't realize it or just forgot, I don't know, but he just ended up in the rotor while turning. Yeah, then he had a collapse and somehow flew into the rock face and died there. So, basically, the parakite is super easy. Lots of kitesurfers come along, buy one of those things, and fly around with it themselves or have buddies who teach them, and if they have a bit of coordination and body awareness, they get the hang of it really quickly.

What I notice, or what I often find, is that people lack respect for flying. I always tell my paragliding students: as soon as you're three meters in the air, you simply have enough energy to land in a wheelchair. It takes so little because you're sitting while paragliding—I mean, get on the table and jump on your ass. Yeah, that won't end well. And this respect, this awareness that it takes so little because we're sitting and also moving quickly—parakites especially—people sometimes lack that a bit. Yeah, and that's why I think it's much smarter if you...

have to get a license. Regardless, I think in a country like Denmark, which has the sea and a coast, from my perspective, you'd have to get two licenses—a paraglider license and a parakite license—and you just have to do the corresponding one. And if you fly a parakite, then maybe you can do a simpler paraglider training later, and if you fly a paraglider, you can do a simplified parakite training, but I would do it like this: now in Switzerland, it's going to be that you're only allowed to fly a parakite if you already have a paraglider trial, a paraglider license, and then you have to attend another course for the parakite—

to obtain a license, and I think that's already super sensible for us, because we just don't have those simple sand dunes that make coastal flying so easy.

Let's jump around the topic a bit and look at different kites or paragliders, just in terms of development, because the Mustache was the first one, it came out four years ago, and as far as I've followed it, there were basically, maybe to put it simply, like three

waves of development in terms of what a kite is like. The Mustache was the first, then came Flow, Mullet, I think, and Mullet X and stuff like that, but they all had similar stretch, something like 5 or 6, a few crushed ones, so everything in a range where you'd say, if you look at the paraglider category, it's probably similar to seeing a B-wing, like an all-rounder. Then came a second wave, suddenly you saw, ah, people are starting to build much more stretched kites. Then there was something from a Dutch company, Dune Rider or whatever it's called, there was the Scraper, which had stretch of 7, then at some point the Flair Mustache—no, not Mustache, the Bandit came out, which also has stretch of 7 in parts, then there was the Albatrox from Flow and stuff like that, so suddenly it moved into the performance level.

and now in recent times, I've seen that, ah, suddenly the manufacturers are coming out with low-aspect paragliders, so like you said, from Flair Scout, which is basically a beginner glider, I think it only has an aspect of 4.8 or something, then there are also beginner gliders, I think from Der Scout, which

The Scout is, so far, the only real, real beginner glider, specifically for beginners.

Yeah, if you call it that, but if you look at the glide ratio, yeah, the Scout, I think the BGD Kiss 2, that also has a glide ratio of 4 something, so just under 5 or so, if I saw it correctly. You have to say that

is really a paraglider and it simply has this option for kite riders that you can use, but it is a paraglider, it's not a parakite, so it can't overshoot and float back on the ground, right? And they write that very clearly, I mean, I think they do a really great job with the communication and I think what they have there is a mega cool idea, but it's not a real parakite.

Then, I'll stick with the aspect ratio again, even if you might say, okay, that doesn't quite fit yet. Air Design recently released the X, which is different from other paragliders; they say they're building a paraglider, so to speak, for the mountains. It's intended as a light mountain glider—how sensible that is or not, you might see—but it's also reduced in aspect ratio to the point where you could say it's perhaps more of a

a simpler one, I don't know if the aspect ratio makes it that much simpler, you can explain that to me in a bit. Another example, the V-Rowdy also only has an aspect ratio of 4.7, it's basically an A-glider, although I don't know if you've flown the Rowdy yet, I find the concept quite interesting because it's built as a two-liner and they say it only has A and B lines, so it doesn't have a completely complex load distribution anymore; whether that's sensible or not remains to be seen. But now, basically these three levels: the all-rounder that came out at the beginning, or the all-rounder gliders all with an aspect ratio of 5 something and early 6, then the performance gliders, and now the reduced gliders. If I'm a normal pilot, what would you recommend to me?

When can I reach for which glider? Or when should I opt for which type of glider there? That's a

That's a very good question. When it comes to paragliding, I'm extremely conservative. If you buy a glider with too much stretch and go thermalling and cross-country flying in the Valais or anywhere else in strong conditions, you're doing yourself no favors at all. You'll have more fear, more collapses, you'll land earlier, you won't fly as far, and it'll also become dangerous. So, with a paraglider, you have to actively control the stretch by actively flying and keeping the wing open, and the more stretched it is, the more difficult it becomes—and the consequences, meaning the chance of having a big stall if you don't do it well, are greater the higher the stretch is. Now, with the paraglider, as I said, it's like you don't actually have to fly extremely actively even on a Bandit in normal coastal soaring conditions.

Even if there are big waves ahead and you're flying at 40-50 km and it's shaking and jerking and doing... I mean, for those who have never experienced coastal soaring with big waves, those are sometimes extremely strong turbulence. So anyone who only knows coastal soaring from Dürr-die-Pila simply hasn't experienced it; they don't have the full picture. At Dürr-die-Pila, it's just flat water and a sandbank for two kilometers, and that's why the air is actually extremely calm there. But if you go soaring somewhere where the sea is right in front of you with two or three-meter-high waves, it can be brutally turbulent. And now, because the Parakites have so much reflex, they actually do the active flying for you.

So, a pilot like you, I think you'd manage great with a Bandit. I know the Bandit on the ground very well, which is why I'm using it as an example; on the ground with a 7 stretch, it's much more demanding. You'll often get the ears first, you almost have to do a cobra with it, it can also shoot, it can stall or the ears won't fill, etc. Simply all the disadvantages that a stretched glider brings with it during ground handling, the Parakites have them. It's just much more demanding. If you take a Scout, you can just throw it, let everything go, grab the brake handles once, just pull with your hips, it fills up slowly, it doesn't shoot, and the ears open and

then you just turn around, grab the brake handles, and you're off. Super relaxed. The chance of it collapsing, shooting, or doing some kind of horseshoe or whatever is much, much smaller—so it's much easier on the ground. But in the air, the Bandit is also stable enough that you don't have to fly it very actively in the conditions where coastal soaring is still fun. So from my point of view, I'm talking only about coastal soaring here; if you're flying around in the mountains, that's a different story. But for just coastal soaring, the main difference is really mostly just on the ground. In the air, a Bandit isn't much harder to fly than a Mustache.

If you hypothetically have a front collapse on a Parakite with a 7 stretch—whether it's a Bandit, a Scraper, or an Albatrox—the chance that it also stalls and you somehow crash with the thing is much greater than with a 5 stretch. That's clear. But I've never seen a video where a glider like that has a front collapse. So, at least so far, it doesn't seem to be a problem for coastal soaring. That means the stretch in paragliding is really crucial, or much more crucial, than in coastal soaring. And that's why I personally believe that in the future, people will tend to fly more stretched gliders for coastal soaring than for paragliding.

So isn't the Scout from Flair sort of a bad investment then? A flawed development, if you say it's actually more about saying the lower-end gliders are the ones, so why do you need a Scout? Or isn't it the people, or is it really what you say, that it's like a training glider? And when you really start saying, "We're doing Parakite training," do you eventually say there's this class of low-stretch gliders that take off completely on their own, you just have to twitch your hips a bit and they go up and do everything for you? And that you first say, "Start with this," and if you get through the first 10 hours with it, then you can switch to the Moustache or whatever, and then also relatively quickly to the Bandit and say, "You can fly that on the coast too."

Exactly, I see it a bit like you do, right? For someone who is a bit older now, doesn't have that much finesse, you know how beginners handle the ground handling at first—you either see too much or too little until you develop that feel for the glider again and so on—it's just cool to have a glider that actively simplifies that for you, or that you just make progress faster and get frustrated less. And yes, or especially for people who don't do paragliding, like kitesurfers and so on, or for schools, I think it's absolutely justified and they need such a thing. Or also, if you want to fly in very turbulent conditions, where a compact glider is simply more stable than an inflated one, right?

So, it definitely has its place, but I wouldn't recommend a Scout to you right now. I mean, you're a normal paraglider pilot who's been flying for a while now, you could start directly with a Moustache, right? Maybe it's not stupid to do a few flights on a Scout if the flight school that's teaching you has one, but in my opinion, you could go straight to a Moustache, no problem, right?

That means for a, let's say, average ENB pilot, you'd always say that this mid-range class of paragliders, the Moustache class with a glide ratio of 5.860, in that range or something, is actually the way to go.

Yeah, I'd say, yeah. It also depends extremely on the pilots' intuition; you know, in the paragliding scene, there are people who fly really well but have zero experience, or zero experience, they just have no skill on the ground, ground handling, and are really bad, untrained there, yet they fly great, and then there's the opposite, then maybe it makes sense to have a few weeks again, right? But basically, it's as you say, yeah.

Let's move on to the second point, which is probably decisive: choosing the size. Absolutely. That mainly influences the dynamics and perhaps the maximum speed, or the maximum wind speed, that you can have there. What would be an ideal...

What's the entry-level size, the average size for a pilot who weighs around 80 kilos?

I always say, it depends on whether you want to complement your paraglider or replace it. Many pilots enjoy flying paragliders, they like to soar with their glider as long as they can, and then they want to get a parakite so that they can still fly their glider even when the wind is too strong, right? And then for an 80-kilo pilot, a 22 or an 18 would certainly make sense, wouldn't it? With an 18 and 80 kilos, if you have the skills, you can easily fly at, well, up to 50 km/h, right? So 55.

And in terms of sizes, if you're talking about the Moustache specifically, saying a 22 or an 18—are these sizes in square meters basically the same across all paragliders, or do you have to say, okay, with the Moustache you might need a 22, whereas with another one you'd need an 18 or a 24 or something like that? Or can you say it relatively uniformly that the 22 class is very similar in terms of what it can do, or the speed windows it can develop?

They aren't all the same, even from different manufacturers, but I'd say the main difference is the aspect ratio.

The more stretched out the glider is, the smaller you can choose it, which is also the case with high-performance models. I think the biggest Enzo is 25.5 square meters, and the biggest beginner glider is about 31 or 32 square meters for the same weight range, so the more stretched out the parakites are, the smaller you can take them. As an example, the largest size for the Bandit is 22, but for the Mustache, there's a 26. But you don't need a 26 Bandit because with a 22 Bandit, you can—it starts off just as early as a 26 Mustache, roughly.

If an 80-kilo pilot—someone who's tried to derive some kind of rule from this—an 80-kilo pilot would normally probably fly a 26-square-meter paraglider. Would you then say, okay, for a similar average, if it were a B-glider or something like that and a Mustache, then you'd say, okay, take your classic paraglider and subtract four square meters, then you'd have that roughly as a paraglider, maybe with similar dynamics, and if you then want even more, then subtract another two or another four square meters. Then you'd be at either the 22 or the 18.

Good question, I haven't really thought about how much you have to subtract. I'd say you get similar dynamics if you take the same size. If you take a smaller one, it's always more dynamic and faster. But most people want to complement the paraglider, and it's just the fact that it's simply more fun with a bit more wind because it's more dynamic and faster than in low wind, you have to say that clearly. For Flair, I think the most sold sizes are already 18 and 22. So I'd say, somewhere between 18 and 22 for an 80 kilo pilot is certainly not a bad size, so that you also get the

wind range of the paraglider can be expanded. If you then go with a 15er at 80 kilos, it's going to get very dynamic.

Then I have to be a more experienced pilot.

Yeah, or have a simple spot and so on. But if you now want to fly in the mountains with 80 kilos on a 15er Parakite, taking off and landing in zero wind—you'll get up to speed pretty quickly. We also do loops with the 15er, and Luca measured it a bit with the GPS. If you do a spiral before the loop with the 15er, I think you're hitting 145 km.

But then you also do three circles beforehand. But even just doing a fast 180-degree turn or something, with 15m² you'll hit over 100 km/h. So that gets sporty pretty quickly. Maybe something else interesting. A lot of people always think a parakite is difficult if it's fast. So people imagine the Mustache is mega fast or the Bandit is mega fast, and that's why it's demanding. But what makes a parakite demanding isn't the maximum speed, because you're voluntary. If you don't want to fly fast, you just don't pull up as high as you want. You only have to fly as fast as you want to.

But if the glider can't fly slowly—meaning, if it just stalls pretty quickly and especially without warning, which is unfortunately the case with many models on the market because they just don't get firm enough. So, the Parakites on top, they're all soft and weird, and every pilot always says, I don't feel anything, it's so soft. That's one thing, but on the bottom, when the brake line is pulled, the leading edge, they have to get firm so that you know where you are. Now you know, I'm in the braked area, the reflex is gone, and now I don't have much room left, it's going to stall soon. So you really have to be able to feel it well there and be able to fly slowly. A Parakite where you can really fly slowly before it stalls, that's just easy, right?

Whether it's mega fast or not doesn't really matter, but we've noticed that slow flight is mega crucial.

So far, there's no certification of any kind for parakites. Would it be a criterion for you where you'd say you can't trigger a collapse on these kites—meaning you can't do classic EN tests with them? If we were to say we wanted to introduce something else, at least some basic tests, would that also be, for example, you saying that a simple, beginner kite shouldn't exceed certain spans, but it should also have particularly good slow flight characteristics, so you'd say you can really brake it down far enough to be able to land the thing properly.

Absolutely, yes. We brainstormed a bit last year and wrote down points for what would be relevant for such a parakite certification, and I specifically wrote down or suggested that it must have a certain braking distance from the moment the brake line is pulled until it tears. That's how it is with a paraglider too; I think for an EN-A glider you have to have 80 cm in total, and I would have suggested that for the parakite as well—not in total, not the entire braking distance, but from the moment the brake line, so the leading edge, is pulled down, that you can pull far enough and that it becomes firm enough there, for example.

So I think it would be great if there were a simple certification for parakites, I believe,

as long as I say the manufacturers aren't restricted too much, but I do think it's a good thing because right now there are various parakites on the market from different manufacturers, and some have relatively a lot of reflex and are extremely stable, while others have less reflex and can suddenly collapse even in normal conditions, so they don't all have the same amount

With the autopilot in, I'd say they don't all fly as actively for you, right? And as a customer, that's dangerous for you. You don't know when you buy a model whether it flies actively for me or if I have to fly actively myself. That's why I think it would probably be better if there were some kind of certification somewhere that standardized that a bit, wouldn't it? And personally, I hope that Parakites really always keep this extreme stability and that development doesn't focus too much on speed and performance, but rather on this super stability, so that you can simply rely on the glider—or mostly rely on the glider—that they keep that, right?

You mentioned earlier that loops have already been flown with the Parakite. Would Parakites be somewhat different, but also essentially Akro-capable? Would that be a different kind of Akro that you could do with Parakites, and would that maybe be its own sport category, where you'd say, "Now there's Parakite Akro"?

I don't think so, because you can do a loop, you can fly a barrel, a Sudgate, do wing-overs, do spirals, but that's about it. I mean, you can't do helices, frills, tailglides and so on, so you're pretty limited there.

What about other forms of competition? I mean, paragliding is also defined by people comparing themselves, by them saying, I do my cross-country flights and at the end I can say I did 100 and you only did 98 kilometers, or I did 250 and you only did 200, or whatever, and people draw some of their motivation from that. Totally. With the parakite, I don't have that; I can soar for myself and say, oh great, I had great dynamics or something, and with the little thing, maybe someone can fly the barrel roll or something else, but you don't have that where you can measure yourself against the other person. Or do you see something eventually, like coastal races, where it says the parakites are now flying up and down 20 times with three buoys, where they always have to fly some small turn or whatever.

Yeah, like you said, there actually isn't. I think I'd find it cool if there were, if there was some fun, interesting competition format one day. There are already some ideas and projects floating around from certain people. Flair even put out a call for a race in Denmark where you had to fly around two buoys—I wasn't there—and whoever was faster... so yeah, I hope that happens one day.

Towards the end, I want to look at one more topic. Parakites are gaining momentum now, and with that, manufacturers are also learning a lot again, perhaps regarding reflex profiles or something similar, because they can experiment more there. To what extent can Parakites not only maybe take a little bit of market share somewhere, but in what ways can Parakites also fertilize the construction of paragliders?

Tough question, but I do think, as you say, that this whole business with these reflex profiles has existed in paramotoring for a long time. But if I understood correctly, they need a lot of reflex there, which is even visible in the upper sail. With parakites, it's more integrated into the lower sail; the upper sail isn't arched up yet, and I also think that parakites are a great

space to gain new insights into these reflex profiles. I personally never would have thought that the gliders were so stable when we launched the Mustard four years ago. At Flare, we told people, hey, if it gets turbulent, fly slowly, fly with the brakes on, and don't just go full throttle; don't rely on the reflex, but rather fly slowly and actively. But looking back now, in all the videos that get people worked up where a glider collapses, it's usually because the pilot flew too slowly or briefly slowed the glider down and took the reflex out. So now people actually know and say, hey, if it's turbulent, you'd better fly fast.

You're better off flying with your hands up, where there's more reflex and it can do its job, and making sure you have some dynamics, maybe a slight carve or a wing-over and so on, and relying on the reflex profile. You can still fly a bit actively in the upper range, but often maybe not pulling down as much as the brake is pulled. And for me, it's quite striking how many paragliders are flying out there every day all over the world in really extreme conditions. So you can fly with paragliders in conditions where you'd never think, where you'd be scratching your head, let's say in Switzerland, and think, it's just crazy to fly there.

And that works, it functions, and the things work there, it's really amazing. And I hope that paragliders will also move more in that direction. From my point of view, paragliders are simply still way too collapsible. And I hope that in the future, paragliders will also become significantly more stable and collapse less. But at the moment, with A and B gliders, you have to be able to pull a collapse over the A lines for certification. And as long as you aren't allowed to use folding lines to certify an A and B paraglider, it's really difficult. Skywalk just did something with the Chili 6, like a hook on the harness, where it still works—you pull the A down and then the B goes up, and just because the B goes higher then,

the glider then loses its reflex, and only then can you pull for the collapse. But that's actually just a trick.

Yeah, I hope that one day they'll also allow the Faltlein thing in the lower categories. Simply that the manufacturers don't have to build the gliders intentionally flimsy. It's just the way it is right now that the manufacturers could build the gliders much more stably, but they aren't allowed to because you can't certify them anymore. It's actually a shame.

You could imagine something like, if there's ever a standard for parakites—a certification standard—that says, okay, you have to have a certain brake distance or the glider must not collapse if you release the full brake, if you let it go completely, it shoots forward, it just can't collapse there. It always has to automatically brake itself, and that's the proof that the reflex works. And once such a standard is in place, you could even imagine, if it says, okay, with this we can basically get many safe parakites approved, that we might eventually say, hey, shouldn't we also adjust the EN standard for paragliders accordingly, so that we don't necessarily look at collapses so much, but rather say, okay, let's maybe

define expansion classes, because so much is defined by expansion—how a glider reacts if it gets tangled, or how quickly it can tangle, and that's the dangerous part. But if I know the gliders themselves have profiles that aren't collapse-prone, but are so little prone to collapse that you could say, maybe we don't have to do these collapse tests anymore, but instead we take the tests we introduced for parakites and simply transfer them to the glider, and suddenly, in the end, we're flying gliders that have been influenced very, very much by the parakites themselves.

Yes, that would be a nice idea. The problem with paragliding is that to fly in thermals, you have to pull down the leading edge, the brakes. And when you pull down the brakes, you create a bulge at the back of the glider, which means you're creating lift at the back, meaning any reflex, no matter how much you've built into it, is then gone. But with the parakite, it's different. With the parakite, you're flying around most of the time without the brake line pulled. So you're actually mostly flying in the reflex range with the parakite and only rarely use the brake. And with paragliding, with thermal flying, it's exactly the opposite. There, you're actually flying on the brake most of the time, where the reflex is gone, meaning the glider then becomes

more susceptible to collapses, and you only release the leading edge when you're basically accelerating or flying straight. From that perspective, plus, I just think that the turbulence in the mountains, in really strong thermals, you simply have much more extreme vertical wind shear than you do on the coast during soaring. And that's why I believe paragliders will never be collapse-proof, even if parakites almost are one day,

collapse will always remain an issue with paragliders, and I think it's good that it's being checked and that people are looking at how a glider behaves during a collapse. But from my perspective, it's currently the case that people—or at least not all manufacturers equally, I don't know where they place the value there—but from my perspective, they place far too much emphasis on how the glider collapses and not enough on it being stable and not collapsing. And with parakites, it's exactly the opposite. With parakites, most manufacturers who build them don't even consider collapse. They don't even check how it reacts when it collapses.

Instead, they just make sure it's so stable that you actually get scared beforehand and don't want to fly it anymore. And only then does it collapse. You know what I mean? As long as it's still actually fun and feels reasonably okay, it shouldn't collapse, and only when it feels completely wrong—when no one is flying it anymore—is it allowed to collapse.

That means you assume there will never be a sort of convergence of both techniques, where you eventually say, at some point paragliders will look different, maybe have different risers, but ultimately they aren't built like parakites, but rather that you say parakites will always be more extreme in terms of reflex than classic paragliders, because I need slightly different profiles for thermals.

Probably, but it's hard to say. I hope, in any case, that paragliders get more reflex and become more stable. But reflex also means less camber, less lift, and in order to climb well, you need a certain amount of camber in the profile to generate lift. With the parakite, the most important thing isn't that it climbs well; it's more about stability. But I can well imagine that one day there will be gliders that can do both relatively well, because a good paraglider that flies that fast should be stable, it should be able to fly slowly without stalling, it should be maneuverable, and it's actually similar with the parakite.

It should be fast, it should be stable, it should be maneuverable, and it also has to be able to fly slowly without stalling. It's not completely different, is it? In terms of requirements. And yeah, maybe one day we'll have a glider where you can really fly cross-country, and then you hang something off the harness or wrap something around it or take a different harness or take a different control bar in your hand and then go soaring. Who knows?

Last question. It might be a bit mean. If you were in a world where you could say, okay, you can either only do one or the other. So either only fly parakites, in a soaring way, or you could do cross-country, fly thermals with the paraglider. Where is your heart more attached, or where would you say, in the long run, would give me more if I had to decide between one or the other, I would choose that? And what would that be? I think at the moment I would choose parakites.

choose. But I have ADHD, and for people with ADHD, things always get boring again, and then they feel new again and need new challenges, so for today I would choose Parakite. Why?

Because speed is involved. I like sports where flow and speed are part of the game, and while paragliding is mega beautiful and mega cool, speed isn't really a factor. I do fly long distances quickly and I like getting a faster pace, but that feeling of speed is completely missing, like in a plane. You just don't get that rush of speed. Adrenaline. Maybe, yeah. I think it's less about adrenaline, it's more just that flow feeling. What's missing a bit for me in paragliding, but in parakite flying or surfing, when...

When snowboarding or skiing in deep powder, you have that. Or when mountain biking, you get that full flow experience, and with parakiting, you have that too.

I'll just leave that as it is. You get that flow experience more with the parakite than with paragliding. Thanks for all the detailed explanations. I think some people will be even more tempted to try flying with the parakite now. To give it a try. At the same time, they might have gotten a few tips on what to watch out for. Like how to still manage to land safely during a top landing, or what to keep in mind regarding size selection. I think for many, that was a good introduction, and have fun with all the flow experiences, whereverver you might have them.

Thanks, Lucian. And I hope you get to enjoy the flow on a Parakite soon, too. I'll give it a try.

In terms of ground handling, I've done that several times already, but I haven't personally experienced that real flow of blasting along the coast with the Parakite yet. But that can still happen.

I always say, to really understand a parakite, you have to stand on an edge somewhere at 40 or 50 knots and have an awesome session, feeling like there could be even more wind. Only then do you truly grasp what parakites are actually capable of.

The growing market and interest in paragliders is currently reflected very little in the mainstream media. There is still no magazine that, for example, publishes independent tests of new paragliders. Anyone looking for information here will quickly end up at Beni Kälin again. On his website speedflyingschool.com, under the knowledgebase section, he offers a whole series of short reviews by describing the properties of various models that he considers important. You can find the link to that and links to even more information about paragliding in the show notes. Did you enjoy the episode? Then subscribe to Podz-Glidz, leave a comment, and recommend the podcast to your friends. If you also want to contribute sustainably so that I can continue to entertain and inform you so well with Podz-Glidz and the associated paragliding blog Lu-Glidz, then become a supporter.

You can choose the amount of your contribution completely freely. 1-2 euros per podcast episode plus 1-2 euros per reading month on Lu-Glidz won't hurt you, but as a freelance journalist, they provide me with a foundation in total to be able to continue these projects. All the necessary information on how your contribution reaches me can be found on the Lu-Glidz blog on the Support page. Until next time, your Lucian.