Episodes

Fabien Blanco is the founder and head instructor at Flyeo in Annecy, a premiere paragliding school focused on teaching SIV, Cross Country and adventure flying. Fabien was a professional acro pilot and is a passionate ski-mountaineer and brings a wealth of knowledge from various "extreme" disciplines to our sport. He discovered when they first started teaching SIV that rather than focusing on ticking off the maneuvers and calling it good they needed to focus more on pilots' mental fundamentals.

If it flies, Andy Hediger flies it (or jumps out of it!). Sailplanes, trikes, hang gliders, light-weight airplanes, wingsuits, Swift, Archaeopteryx, Virus, but he rates the paraglider as the king of them all. The developer of the D-Bag, Andy was there at the absolute beginning of Acro and cross country, sewing some of the very first wings and his passion and love of the sport is as strong now as it was in the beginning. The "Airman" has pushed the limits of flying, safety, instruction and certif...

Two days before the Monarca kicked off in Valle de Bravo, Mexico this January our podcast editor Myles Connolly had a cascade episode low and threw his reserve for the first time. Myles got hung over 80' off the ground in a dead tree without injury. Some locals came to help out quickly but when things started getting a little tense a calm head prevailed and Myles got down to the ground safely. In many ways, a benign event.

Several years ago Nova Paragliders changed the way we think about performance when they put some of their top pilots on the Mentor, an EN B wing and the world watched as they ticked off some of the biggest flights that had ever been done in the Alps, including the vaunted 300 FAI triangle. By flying wings that were less mentally and physically demanding pilots could stay in the air for 10+ hours and make less mistakes. Till Gottbrath began flying when a paraglider had a glide ratio worse than a ...

What makes a successful pilot? Is it just talent and hours or something anyone can learn with training and application? Sports psychology gives us the answer if we break it down into three dimensions: technical, physical and mental. In this episode Adél Honti explains how her analytical approach and study of human psychology has helped her understand how to operate more adeptly in our invisible world. Adél explains why "races are won and lost in the mind." How do we get into the "Flow"? How shou...

After many many requests we bring you our first show dedicated to speed flying and mini wings. Patrick Hennessey is a pilot based in the Northwest of the US who's been getting after it but came into the sport via skydiving and has a pretty interesting take on how people should learn and access the sport. In this episode we talk about the inherent risks of flying small wings, the high number of unnecessary accidents, the "cowboy" attitude and the lack of foundational skills, how important your ow...

Marko Hrgetic Hrga has been flying World Cups for the past 11 years, has a paragliding school in Valle De Bravo, Mexico which operates under the Swiss APPI system. In this episode we get technical on how to fly fast. Hand position, use of speed bar, how to climb faster, speed to fly, using macready, using polar curves, using pilots in front to fly fast, correct weight shift, the importance of relaxing and using rough air to your advantage, not making stupid mistakes, SIV with modern gliders, and...

Lisa Hope Tilstra gives us a perspective all of us can relate to as pilots as she's a total newbie- as a brand new pilot she's going through what we all have at some point in our flying lives. No flight can ever match that first time we stepped into the air and remembering how special that was is reason enough to listen to this show, but we dig down into the huge differences of coming into this sport as a female versus a male; what challenges new pilots face; how instructors really need to adapt...

Christoph Weber has been the race director of the Red Bull X-Alps since 2007. This episode dives into the behind-the-scenes for our fans of the show who wanted more than what's available on live tracking. How do athletes get chosen? How is the route decided every year? What's the story with how the rules have changed over the years? Is it possible to beat Chrigel? How has the race changed over the years? What are the major logistics involved and what is Red Bull's role? This and a lot more...

Théo De Blic is one of the new generation of professional acro pilots who has been staggering audiences around the world with his incredibly difficult twisted sequences. In this episode we learn how Théo has become one of the most-winning pilots on the World Cup tour and how he's making a living from flying and then we get into the essentials of progression, the ardors of competition, the best equipment for acro, the safest way to learn acro, the steps of throwing your rescue, why you should lea...

Phil sends big lines in the biggest terrain in the Alps and decided a couple decades ago to ditch his engineering career because the sky was calling. An Australian native, Phil discovered Zermatt over twenty years ago and made it his home. We discuss the business of tandem flying and the inherent risks involved; the importance of confidence when flying XC; how to "own it"; the best flying sites in the Alps; the call of the big mountains; how to make a career in flight; what makes the "perfect" s...

It's here folks! The bonus episode you've all been waiting for. We released this follow up episode with Chrigel Maurer a couple months ago for our Patreon supporters. Don't miss these! Sign up to support the show through Patreon and get immediate access to bonus material like this on a regular basis. All we ask for is a buck an episode.

For all of us who make the yearly winter migration to Valle...

Xandi Meschuh has been in the flying game since the very beginning. He learned to fly RC planes from his father, a pilot before he was ten years old and got the paragliding bug soon afterwards. Xandi has his own flight park near Gerlitzen, Austria where he teaches new students as well as seasoned professional pilots looking to nail their first Infinite loop. He has taught SIV since SIV began; has been a test pilot and designer for Icaro since 2004; operates a successful tandem business; is a ski...

In this wide-ranging and laugh-out-loud episode Dustin Martin takes us through some close calls with tornados (plural!); how to assess a gust front; a brief history of hang gliders; the importance of mentors; how to find good lines; avoiding sink; working light lift; reducing drag; advice for new pilots; chasing world records; sponsorship; being a student and building a foundation; the origins of the Cloudbase Foundation, the dangers of moving to a higher performance wing too fast; what it takes...

In this episode we turn the tables a bit and I get interviewed by Nik Hawks, who followed the race closely and had a bunch of questions for me. Why did we pull the nightpass the first night? What mistakes were made? What did we learn from the 2015 race that came in handy this time? That bomb-out on day three when we were in such a strong position- what happened and what were the consequences? This and a lot more.

Pal Takats began flying 16 years ago in the flatlands of Hungary and has since created a career any pilot would envy. One of the first Red Bull acro pilots and the man responsible for many of the current and modern acro combinations (the Joker, Cowboy, Esfera, etc.) Pal does paramotor demos for Red Bull at air races around the world, base jumps in his free time, flies speed wings, has twice competed in the Red Bull X-Alps (he was 8th in 2009 and 7th in 2017), is an exceptional cross country and ...

Imagine an engineless airplane reaching the edge of space. Crazy? Impossible? In this episode of the Cloudbase Mayhem Kevin Brooker, a passionate sailplane pilot takes us through the long history of sailplanes to the stuff that is at the far edge of what the imagination can even grasp. Just recently the altitude record was broken (52,000 feet!)- without an engine flying in wave in the Andes.

Episode 50 is all about competitions. From flying psychology to training David Snowden has taken 25 years of flying passion into figuring out to take a country (Australia) with plenty of talent but with few of the resources that France, Germany, and Switzerland (for example) have to be a serious player on the world stage. In this podcast Dave sheds light on their journey from not even having a team in 2015 and being ranked in 38th place in the world to breaking the top 15 and sending a strong, c...

Honza Rejmanek competed in the Red Bull X-Alps five times. He finished in 3rd place in 2009 and made goal in Monaco in his last campaign in 2015. Many of our listeners will also know Honza from his regular meteo column in Cross Country Magazine. Honza makes a living as a meteorologist and in this episode we tap into his vast knowledge of the invisible world we operate in and how to understand how it works and how to use this knowledge to fly farther and safer. Honza's passion for flying and for ...

Max Fanderl began flying paragliders and then hang gliders in the late 80's. A few months after his first flight he quit his job to become an instructor and has made a life of flying. He was a test pilot in the 90's, moved to Canada after going there on a vacation and never returning home where he opened a school and eventually competed in the Red Bull X-Alps four times. In this episode we explore how Max learned how to fly into the wind and why all flying should be approached with mindful train...

The Red Bull live tracking is great, but it misses out on all the behind-the-scenes and in this talk we dive into what the fans don't get to see. We talk training, supplements, our decision on using the nightpass the first night, mistakes made, good moves, dicey launches, crazy weather and how the 2017 race was the most brutal yet. In 12 days I did 16 1/2 marathons, climbed the height of Everest 4 times (34,000 meters of vertical ascent), flew over 1,000 km- and I was still 308 km from goal! Onl...

Reavis learned to fly a decade ago and had a pretty unusual experience with being in the air- he doesn't experience fear. But he had a very firm understanding of the risks and wanted to be a safe pilot and took his progression and learning seriously and conservatively. This approach has given Reavis, who is now one of the pilots who regularly sends huge lines in North America a unique flying toolbox to help decipher the weather and more. Reavis is a software engineer and lives on the road chasin...

Chrigel Maurer is the undisputed king of paragliding and after his 5th straight X-Alps win I get the feeling that he's just getting started. Chrigel was the world champion 3 times, is an acro champion, test pilot for Advance, two times winner of the X-Pyr, regularly dominates the Swiss League and just simply wins- over, and over and over again. Everyone has heard of Chrigel's famous training (ground handling in VERY strong wind, flying in the lee of cornices...) but most don't know the extent of...