Cloudbase Mayhem Podcast

Greg is a former PWC pilot and is the man responsible for all those awesome FlyBubble videos, participated in the X-Pyr in 2016, is passionate about vol biv and has a lot of great thoughts and advice for pilots at every level. We discuss gear and choices and how to not get sucked into what others are saying vs what's right for you, how to get into vol biv and best practices, the difference and advantages and disadvantages of 2 vs 3 liners, why "flying slow" is a worthy chase, learning to develop intuition that's not "intuitive", comps and chasing the aesthetics rather than the result, quality vs numbers and distances, what makes a "champion" and mastery, how to find the winning line and so, so SO much more. THIS ONE IS AWESOME. ENJOY!

Bernhard (Benni) Kalin is a Swiss all-things-flight instructor at ChillOutParagliding. Based in Interlaken, speedflying was his initial addiction but over the years it has spread to all canopies- paragliding, base jumping, kitesurfing, kiteskiing- you name it. Last year flying with his father in the Wallis Benni had to deploy his reserve for the first time and ended up in a terrifying position that required a helicopter recovery. In this episode we discuss the exciting future of Reflex wings, dealing with fear injuries, some of Benni's most-memorable flights, speed-flying best practices and why it's as dangerous as base jumping, how to safely get started on mini wings, why learning paragliding before speed flying is so essential and the risks of overconfidence. Enjoy!

Nick Greece returns to the Mayhem to share a wealth of insights into competition and flying insights and some very honest talk about the manic ride that often defines our sport. This is an honest and at times hysterical talk about the risks of our sport, dealing with PTSD, creating positive headspace, the psychology of finding flow, rationalizing the risks, finding mentors, how to be a disciplined pilot, the importance of staying calm and enjoying the process, racing the course instead of the other pilots, why failure is important to winning and a LOT more.

Armin Harich is the co-founder of Skywalk Paragliders, started flying in 1989 and has never had an accident, and is the first person to fly over 300km in Germany, and he did it on a EN B wing (the Skywalk Tequila). I was told by many people before speaking to Armin that he's a flatlands "SkyGod" so we focused much of this show on flatlands flying techniques and how people started flying the flatlands, dealing with airspace, how to assess weather in advance of a potentially good day, and a lot more.

Nik Hawks returns to the Mayhem to share two pretty scary incidents that ended well, but came with a LOT of lessons that every pilot can learn from including: coming back from "fear injuries" by using the big 4, time, building exposure, and pattern recognition; how to get better at self-assessment (wingovers, exit from 360, exiting and entering spirals cleanly, avoiding and handling collapses, etc.); how to ask older/better pilots for help and the best way to approach mentors; when a pilot is really ready to go XC and what risks that involves; what groundhandling can...and maybe can't help with...

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 certification from the advent of the sport and was one of the first pilots to develop SIV to help make the sport more safe, and why most schools still get it wrong and why so many accidents keep happening.

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 Rogalo reserve in 1986 and has never had an accident. In this episode we discuss...

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 should we approach training? How should we deal with failure?

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 own personal background is before you learn to fly a small wing, how "stupid" small wings are to fly, the best programs to go through to learn, how to safely learn the more advanced tricks, yet another shout out to learn ground handling and a lot more.

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 a lot more. Many of our listeners have been asking for tactics for races, how to properly fly a three-liner, why they lose the lead gaggle- here are the direct answers! Enjoy this episode, there's a lot here to digest!

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 their teaching styles to suit how you learn; how to find a good instructor (and ditch the bad!) and a lot more. Enjoy!

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 learn on a non Acro or Freestyle wing...and a lot more

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" student; and how to always be wary of complacency. Enjoy!

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 skilled XC pilot and has seen just about everything.

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 to win; maintaining passion and a TON more. This was one of the most enjoyable discussions we've had on the Mayhem, please don't miss this one!

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 world cup competition pilot but it hasn't all been a walk in the park to get there.

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, competive team to the Worlds this summer in Italy.

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 weather are obvious from the first word- consider this a masters class in understanding the sky!

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 training; where most new pilots make mistakes; why getting into flying too fast leads to many people getting scared and leaving the sport...

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! Only two athletes made it, Chrigel Maurer won for his 5th straight time, and rookie Benoit Outers made it in just before the time expired. 5 athletes were eliminated and 7 withdrew due to injury or exhaustion.

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 chasing flying hours year-round (and BTW he answers the most common question I get from our listeners- how do you change your life so you can fly more?). His analytical mind and passion for flight will help you develop a totally different set of skills that will increase your potential as an XC pilot.

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 how hard and specifically he trains. How much is talent versus persistence?

"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 wilderness environment; how to assess a casualty and make a scene safe; how to care for a victim including the use of narcotics and pain killers; how having a lack of equipment and difficult access to medicine can be overcome; the affects of cold and altitude on pilots (hypoxia); how an accident scene needs to be managed; best practices for trauma management (including splinting, binding the pelvis, the lethal triad and keeping people warm, pain relief, head injuries, tourniquets...); controversies about spinal immobilization and a lot more.

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 living?

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 wild vol-biv trips that have ever been accomplished.

"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 is going, how the new aircraft is opening all kinds of new adventures, we revisit his decision to wingsuit basejump again after losing so many friends to the sport, and in true Jeff Shapiro style- talk about life and joy and wonder in a way that only Jeff can.

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 special episode with a special pilot.

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 a lot of advice for beginners and how to avoid the "lemming affect."

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 level; tactics for flatland flying; the importance of flying intuitively and following a "hunch"...

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 (like when she sold her violin to attend a comp!) and in this talk she takes us to at times some dark and very personal places (surviving a terrible crash at the Superfinal, losing her husband to flight, recovering from eternal fear), but the journey, like a great flight pays off in spades and is one you will not soon forget.

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 incredible talent; the importance of mentors and how where you fly affects the pilot you can become; the local advantage and the traps of flying the unknown vs the known; what separates the best from the good; the importance of mental strength and believing in yourself; the importance of a glider in a competition and the importance of choosing a glider that suits the task- and a LOT more.

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 fly over 200 miles (in 1983!) and was the first person to fly over 300 miles. His 308 mile record from Hobbs, New Mexico in 1994 wasn't beaten for a decade. In the mid 80's Larry was widely regarded as one of the best hang gliders in the world and this conversation covers a lot of awesome ground. Scary close calls, whorehouses, guns, cowboys, flying in tornados, trouble with the police, flying with air force bombers and early towing nightmares- this podcast is a glimpse into a crazy world of the pioneers who laid the ground in free flight.

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 common cause of accidents; the most dangerous maneuver (you might be surprised); the scariest maneuver; a ton of info on reserves and their use; safe ways to progress and a lot more. Enjoy!

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 with the North Face and Niviuk.

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 distance records, Red Bull athlete, and that's just the beginning. Kari has made a life and a living out of flying and her wealth of knowledge is a tank I try to tap in this great conversation with a true legend in human flight.

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 surrounding yourself with the type of pilot you want to become, what's so special about flying, how pilots develop an "unconscious competence" that can really help in emergency situations, how difficult it can be to return to the sport after a long break, where to do your first vol-biv, how to reduce stress in flying and a LOT more.

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.