Episodes

"Gutsy girls skateboard, climb trees, clamber around, fall down, scrape their knees, get right back up — and grow up to be brave women. Learn how to spark a little productive risk-taking and raise confident girls with stories and advice from firefighter, luger, author, paraglider and all-around adventurer Caroline Paul."- TED

This is the most critical podcast episode we've made available to date on the show. As human flight junkies we participate in activities that let's face it- are dangerous. In this episode we sit down with Matt Wilkes, an anaesthesia and intensive care doctor based in Edinburgh, Scotland who specializes in extreme physiology and remote medicine to walk us through best practices when things go wrong. Matt takes us through what we need to be carrying in our first aid kit; how to operate in a wilder...

Benjamin Jordan made history in 2016 flying a 1,000 km bivvy line solo from Vancouver to Calgary across the Coast Range and Rocky Mountains of BC and Alberta, an expedition that took 39 days to complete. To some bold pilots maybe an obvious and tempting line, but there were plenty of reasons it had never been flown, which are in part the subject of Benjamin's new documentary "Strong the Wind Blows". In this episode we talk about the ultimate question- if life isn't worth dying for, is it worth l...

Chris Santacroce has been a pillar in human flight for nearly thirty years. A long time Red Bull Air Force athlete; co-owner and founder of Superfly Paragliding in Utah; founder of Project Airtime which allows the disabled to fly; total air Jedi on anything that flies- from powered trikes to wingsuits and everything in between, Chris has been one of the most requested guests for the show and now here it is.

Antoine Laurens began flying in 1992 when he was just seventeen years old. He's lived a life of adventure and flying has been a way of life for the last two and half decades. One of the world's great vol-biv pilots Antoine crossed over a 1,000 km route of the Himalayas (the film trailer of the "Himalayan Odyssey" can be seen here) and was part of the small team I joined in 2012 when we flew from the south end of the Sierra range to the Oregon border. Antoine has done some of the longest, most wi...

"If you believe you can do it, you can do it. But that doesn't mean it will happen tomorrow. You have to do the work, nothing replaces mileage (or in this case, air time)." Little nuggets of wisdom like this is why Jeff Shapiro returns to the Cloudbase Mayhem in this amazing follow up to our first podcast a year and a half ago. The first time we spoke Jeff was just learning how to paraglide after spending a lifetime and thousands of hours hang gliding. We catch up to explore how his progression ...

Ground handling is the cornerstone of being a good, safe pilot. But of all the most important foundational building blocks you can practice it is often the most neglected. For many pilots "groundhandling" is pulling the wing up and getting off the hill. This is only the first step. Many of our listeners have asked for a specific ground handling episode and now here it is!

"If the conditions are too gnarly, don't land, climb and get to better air!" Thoughts like this from Nick Neynens are what allowed him to finish the 2015 Red Bull X-Alps in 10th place. Nick has an untraditional approach and it works- he's flown vol-biv all over the world and has competed in the X-Pyr and X-Berg as well. In this episode we learn more about his untraditional approach and talk about risk justification, progression, meteorology, and using sandals in the hardest race on Earth. A spec...

Christina Kolb is the current female world acro champion and one of the few women in the world who has perfected the Infinite tumble. In Annecy this year she won the female class and was 12th overall- an incredible achievement. In this episode we visit and revisit the cause of many accidents and how preventable they are, how to learn acro, the importance of SIV and ground handling, why altitude is more important in many cases than water, best and worst advice, how to reduce stress on launch, and...

Tom Payne competed in the 2009 X-Alps and was Jon Chambers supporter in 2011 and 2013 and edited Jon Chambers book "hanging in there" which documents Jon's X-Alps campaigns. But the X-Alps is just a blip in Tom's long, passionate career in paragliding. Tom has been flying for over 20 years and is one of my own personal mentors. He's been a major player in the comp scene and is well known across Europe for flying big, creative triangles.

Hugh Miller began flying at the age of 15 and has been a household name in the sport since taking over Cross Country Magazine back in the 90's at the age of 21. He does most of the EN C and D wing testing for the magazine today and just last year won the UK League in a career that spans decades. This talk could have gone on for hours. We cover a huge range of topics that are pertinent and valuable for any pilot at any level- exposure to risk in competitions; how to improve regardless of your lev...

On the 25th of November 2016 Joanna Di Grígoli beat her own personal best by 240 km and landed than 2 km away from beating the longest women's footlaunch in history flying just over 400 km in Quixada, Brazil. But this talk is a lot more than chasing records. The flight in Brazil in the topping on the cake. Joanna grew up in Caracas, Venezuela and hasn't been able to ignore the flying dream since she was a child. Her drive and stubborness to pursue her passion has at times caused some problems (l...

We've got a VERY special episode for you this Holiday Season. Ozone test pilot and world cup crusher Russ Ogden, one of the great living legends of paragliding and the inspiration for the Cloudbase Mayhem podcast and one of the most-mentioned pilots in the podcast gives us two solid hours that I am calling a Masters Class in paragliding. This is the most information dense episode to date. There isn't much we don't cover here-

Michael "Micky" Sigel began flying before most people learn how to drive a car. His early talent and passion got him on the Advance team when he was just sixteen years old. These days Micky makes a living as a test pilot for Gin Gliders and has been a dominant force in the Swiss League and the World Cup for nearly a decade. In this episode we catch up on what went down with the Gin factory last year in Northern Korea; what a test pilot actually does; how the Swiss League turns out so much incred...

Larry Tudor was known as the "Dark Prince" back in the day. We roll the clock way back to 1973 when Larry learned how to fly his first hanglider in the seated position (yep, pre-prone days) on a wing that got a worse glide ratio than today's smallest speed wings. The stories in this episode are going to make your head spin. Remember when hangies flew the Owens every day in the summer? Guys tumbling out of the sky and not using reserves? Flying without instruments? Larry was the first person to f...

Max Marien broke the Infinity Tumbling record after jumping out of a helicopter in 2012, going right up and over his wing an incredible 374 times. Max started flying at the tender age of 12 and makes his living flying tandems at the Torrey Pines Glider port. He's been frequently requested on the show and this talk is awesome. Whether you are pursuing acro or not, there's a lot of great knowledge and advice here, including how risk changes after you have kids; how to get into acro; the most commo...

World-famous climber turned paragliding addict Cedar Wright returns to the Mayhem to describe...well a bit of mayhem! A year ago I sat down with Cedar on the podcast, who was 6 months into his sky addiction and as we're both in Banff for the film festival we thought it would be fun to find out how this past year has gone. He and his learning partner Matt Segal flew off the highest mountain in Mexico, Pico De Orizaba, which is the centerpiece of Cedar's new film "The Fledglings", in partnership w...

In this episode I sit down with former British team pilot and 15 year instructor and Alps guide Kelly Farina to discuss his new comprehensive book on paragliding, "Mastering Paragliding." This fantastic read is and A to Z encyclopedia of flying. Many concepts were completely new to me- the 4/90 rule, the Golden Rule of thermalling and gliding, lee side warnings, becoming a "natural", the air mass spectrum and a lot more.

Kari Castle has been flying for 35 years. You name it, she's flown it. Hangliders, paragliders, paramotors, speed wings- her passion for flying began early and she still goes hard. She was winning hang gliding competitions before paragliding was even invented and then when paragliding came around she went ahead and won a bunch of those too. A fraction of her resume is enough to put most of us to shame: 14 national HG championships, 6 national PG championships, 3 world HG championships, multiple ...

Isabella Messenger took a paragliding course in 2007 and quit her job as an IT Specialist after the first day. She's been chasing it ever since. She and her husband and air-Jedi Jamie Messenger spend half their year in the Alps traveling in their camper van and the other half in Nepal flying as much as they can. You name it, Isabella flies it- world cup competitions, acro, vol-biv, tandem. In this inspiring episode we flush out why there aren't more women in the sport, the importance of surround...

On the last day of the World Cup in Sun Valley in 2012 British pilot Guy Anderson disappeared in an area we call "no man's land." Three days later, in a heroic search effort involving thousands of man hours and a very fired up team Guy was found, in no small part due to his own monumental efforts to stay alive. Guy suffered some pretty major injuries but three months later he was flying at the top of the stack at the Superfinal and hasn't looked back since.

Ed Ewing, the editor of Cross Country magazine takes over as show-host and asks Gavin the questions many people have wanted to know about how it all went down on the traverse. We talk about the Red Bull X-Alps, how Gavin's obsession with paragliding started and find out what led to his 6-year pursuit of a dream- to traverse the full length of the Alaska Range by paraglider and foot. We find out what went right, what went wrong, what gear was used, what happened after Dave had to leave, and hear ...

What's it like to break world records? How do you win tasks at World Cups? Find out how to train to truly go big from one of our sports most talented and dedicated pilots, Brazilian Rafael Saladini. Rafael discusses strategies and tactics at the world cup level; why the Brazilian team and his mentors are able to send such huge flights with so much style; why he left the sport for seven years and how he rediscovered the passion; how to avoid the "superman" illusion; coming back from accidents and...

Bruce Goldsmith has quite possibly more competition flying under his belt than anyone. One of the few pilots who's won in both Hangliding and Paragliding Bruce began flying comps in the mid 80's and capped off over 30 years of success by winning the world championships in 2007 in Australia. He's started or designed for most of the major brands in paragliding (Ozone, Airwave, Advance, etc.) and now heads up Bruce Goldsmith Designs.