In this continuing series on legends in the sport I sit down with Butch Peachy to discuss his over 40 years of flying hang gliders and his continued passion today. We begin with Butch’s early days in hang gliding, his unique adventures including being (likely) the first to vol-biv with a hang glider, and the evolution of the sport. Butch shares crazy stories from the 70’s, his experiences in competitions, and how music has played a role in his flying adventures. The conversation highlights the passion and challenges of hang gliding, along with valuable lessons learned throughout Butch’s journey. We discuss the exhilarating yet risky world of hang gliding, sharing personal anecdotes of near-misses and triumphs. Butch shares evolutions in the sport, the importance of mentorship, and the psychological impacts of flying. He reflects on his long-standing passion for flying, the adaptations he has made as he ages, and the significance of pursuing what you love in life. The conversation culminates in insights about relationships and finding common ground with partners who share similar passions.
Photo Anna Eppink
Support the Podcast
A buck an episode, that's all we ask
If you like what you hear, please consider becoming a subscriber to ensure our high-quality content continues. You can also help contribute to a healthier, greener planet through our partnership with Our Forest.
See our donation and subscription options here.
Listen to the Podcast
Listen to us on all the most popular podcast platforms:
Gavin McClurg (00:10.735)
Hey there everybody welcome to another episode of the Cloudbase Mayhem. Happy holidays! Hope you're all having a wonderful December and enjoying the snow if you're in the northern hemisphere and getting lots of tasty flights if you're if you're not. It seems like the season is well underway. Big season in Brazil and beer and everybody's now seems to be transitioning down to Mexico and Colombia. I'll be down there for the Monarca in January and then the
super final in february in columbia so looking forward to getting back in the air the hike and fly has been pretty good here in sun valley i guess we've had a very late start to the season but starting to get some snow now so transitioning to skis but happy holidays just a reminder we've got a lot of cool stuff i guess it's a little too late to make it for christmas now but they've been importing a ton of xc tracer barrios the max and the mini over the last couple years now actually
line out the door. So if you need anything in that department, go to the website cloudbasedmayhem.com and check out the shop. also now the importer for Netsu heated gloves. They've got a thin version and a thick version and those have also been flying out the door. So much of that is back ordered, but I got another big shipment coming. Should arrive early January. So if you need anything, also tons of Patagonia stuff and cloud based mayhem merch and all that kind of thing. We need any presents.
over to the shop on the website and get whatever you need including the book Advanced Paragliding. For this holiday special we continue our legend series with Butch Pichy. He's been a San Diego pilot flying hang gliders out there for over 40 years. He believes he might be the first person ever to vol-biv with his hang glider and this is just a series of fantastic stories that
kind of encompass most of his life. been really passionate about flying since the beginning in the 70s. He talks about some of the crazy accidents he's had. he's luckily been able to walk away from and how to kind of deal with fear and flying. He also instructs now, so he's got a lot of valuable insights in that department. He talks about...
Gavin McClurg (02:36.512)
how you have to change how you fly as you age and get less resilient. The importance of having a partner who supports what you do in the sky and do some fun adventures over the years. I've really enjoying doing these and I don't know if you all know this, maybe 90 % of the podcasts we do here on The Mayhem or the guests on the podcast come from listeners, from you all.
just suggesting people. I've got I think eight or nine in the can right now. I've been doing a lot of these lately as I have had plenty of time the last couple months. So I've got a whole bunch that will carry us through the winter. But keep feeding me your favorites. If you want to hear somebody on the show, let me know and I'll reach out and get them on. No guarantees, but I certainly try. So enjoy this chat with Butch.
Fantastic character and pilot and a lot of history there and again Happy Holidays. Thanks for your support. I really appreciate it. We couldn't do it without you and thanks for listening. Cheers
Gavin McClurg (03:56.366)
Butch Peechie, you've definitely got the best name that I've had on the show so far. We'll have to talk about that, but welcome to the show and thank you for your time. And tell me about how you got into all this craziness. were just recording before we were recording and we're doing the second time here, but 51 years ago, right? 1973. Yeah, I had a roommate come home and he says, Hey Peechie, that's what he called me.
What'd you do this weekend? I said, well, I worked. I bagged groceries with my first job out of the service. And I said, well, I worked, Frank. What did you do? says, I went hang gliding. If you try hang gliding, you'll burn your skis. Because I I skied 30 days the first year I started. I just go all in for everything. And I said, what's this hang gliding? He says, well, this guy, they have this kite thing and they hook it to the kite and you run down a hill and you land at the bottom. I go, that sounds like fun. And so I went over to...
I met a guy at San Diego State and he would take people up to about 50 miles north and there was a school called Escape Country. They held some of the first meets out there in the 70s. ended up there, but I didn't connect up with the right school. It was kind of a fly-by-night school. And the guy kind of like set us all in a little circle with a chalkboard, showed us a glider. This is angle of attack. This is angle of attack. And said, any questions? And we're going like, wow.
Okay, everybody got to run with the glider on flat ground. Any questions? No, okay. Let's go to the hill. And so they'd have a guy hold the back of the glider and you'd run down the hill and they'd go, push out, pull in. And everybody was stalling immediately. And I was the third one up there and I go like, okay. Because I had one aviation class, I knew I need airspeed. And so I started running down the hill and I put the yell, push out. And I pushed out, but then I pulled in.
and I was clipping daisies as I'm going down the training hill and they're yelling, push out, push out. And I climbed 40 feet into the air and I almost overshot the whole training hill down and then it went down to another 200 feet. anyway, I was the first one to fly in the class and I looked back up after I landed, there was jumping up and down. We had a great day. Finally the regular school came over, but the fly by night school, that's how I started. That was my only lesson I ever had to
Gavin McClurg (06:18.963)
in hang gliding. Really? And I knew everything about it. So we went and rented gliders and showed my friends how to fly. And of course we crashed in ravines and broke gliders and hurt ourselves. That's how hang gliding started. I love it that your instructors go, okay, well now you know everything I know and you basically been taught nothing. Oh yeah. Well, it was easy. Lean right, lean left.
There was somebody at work that also hang glided and that's all you thought about. you, it was like being in a, you had a, if you ever had a bad breakup with a relationship, every time you don't have any feedback, you think about that relationship. It would accept that was you thinking about flying the hang glider. That's what it is. you're in your early twenties then? You're just out of the military? I 73, I'm 25, 27 or something like that. Yeah. Okay.
Yeah. I was older. I was way older than everybody. wrote me in an email that you got into competitions. You wanted to be really good, but you didn't have the talent nor the intellect. I laughed about that a lot, but you just were saying you were maybe the first pilot ever to, what'd you call it? It wasn't called Volbiv obviously back then, but Campfly. They called it Campflying. What happened was I was flying the second
cross-country meet ever. Well, I flew the first one in 78 and I flew 79 and we were flying flat surface, single surface gliders. The battens were flat. They would have deflectors or something like that. You can look that all up, but they were about a six to one glider back then. they- wing now. What's that? Like a speed wing now.
paragliding. And what the hell, you know, the big air at Owens, you can fly anything. All right. Even your, you know, like a jack, a jack with battens in it would fly. But anyway, they called the day it was too windy in the sky, George Worthington, I'm looking at you, we've flown in stronger, air than it said, what was fly off anyway, so we took off and you couldn't make it to an LZ, you had to land back up on back up in a ravine.
Gavin McClurg (08:39.578)
if you didn't get out. That's the way this place was then. We didn't have the glad to get out. But we took off and then I, ended up grabbing a thermo, climbing out and then flying down the valley. said, it's a windy day. I could really go far. And they called for 50 knots at 18,000 feet. I go like, well, I'll just stay under 50 knots. I'll just stay under 18,000 feet. And then I got to about 10 grand, about 20 miles, 30 miles away. And I said, I'm going to go deeper. I'm going to go into the deep end of the mountains.
And all of sudden I got blasted up and then it was past a place called White Mountain called Palisade Flats. And I got, I was being sucked up in this thermal and I was at 13 grand to 14 grand and I'm backing up and the glider's backing up. and, and, and I got, I got the bar fully stuffed. I mean, I have pulled in all the way and the glider's still backing up and I'm trying to get off and then,
I ended up just getting blown over the back of the mountain into some rotor and then came down in the shadow of the rotor and the glider was going left, right, left, right. And somehow I flared and got the thing on the ground, grabbed the nose of the glider and held it down. Anyway, I found out when I'm holding my little Hall Wind Indicator, it was pegged at 55 miles an hour on the ground. So that 50 knots wasn't at 18,000. It was more like at 12,000.
Oh my God. You're flying at wave. So I was about a mile behind the edge of the mountain there. So I walked around and I had a cocoon harness. I'm freezing up there because it's like 40 degrees at that altitude, like just around 13 grand walking through the mountains. And I find some place and my driver comes in, butch, butch, butch, saw you disappear. Where'd you go? And I said, I'm OK.
I said, what do do? I will go get George and we're on CB radios. It was a big box like this. He put nine batteries in, you I got an antenna and I'll call him, I'll call him about an hour. So I ended up, it's all shale, nothing up there except shale. So anyway, I tell him, said, well, what are you going to do? I said, well, I'm going to fly off when the winds die down. They didn't fly, but I found some rocks piled up that bass shape herders used and I found some fence posts and I use my landing form.
Gavin McClurg (11:04.242)
to get a fire going and that's how I kept warm because I had a little thermometer. It would drop down to 32 degrees and that's like, can you live inside your refrigerator for how long? But I remember I just kept rotating, laying on my harness, freezing my butt off and then kept rotating. Then the next morning it dropped down to 15 miles an hour. said, okay. I walked out, it was about a mile lighter and I got it over to the edge.
took off into this ravine. said, if you ever did a good cliff launch, now's the time. And off I went. And the, I remember making one pass, very went, NeNe, NeNe. And I go, thanks for letting me go. And, I glided for maybe 20 minutes to a place called Benton stations and landed. And, I landed there and it's like seven 30 in the morning and
This is my girlfriend at the time. She butch butch out there and she drove all the way down from mammoth We were staying and she showed up within five minutes and I was able to fly the cop that next day Though I spent a lot of smoke That was the first I was the first guy to ever camp glide the guy George wrote about Which I guess you know paragliders do this all the time now Yeah, I mean it's I you know, we made a film about it back in 20
12, I guess. And, you know, we were kind of guessing there was maybe 50 people in the world, you know, full-biving and now it's, now it's a regular thing. mean, everybody's doing it. The advent of light gear and everything just made it so much more possible and fun. know, I saw something this guy was going through, hitting all day. Him and his friend were hitting all these different mountains in through Nevada. And I got, wow, what a great adventure they were doing. I can't remember his name, but.
Hansa and Logan. Yeah, those guys are just, I mean, they're doing stuff that like we never even dreamed of. Yeah, that's pretty exciting because you can just stuff it in anywhere, spend the night, keep going. Yeah, and it got a little tint and all that. But you were the first. You led the way, You were the first. Not planned, of course, but you were the first. Yeah, I did.
Gavin McClurg (13:22.098)
I found a little stream, know, the moon came out and a big Lindt tickler set up in the middle of the night and the moon came up, you know, it was beautiful. you have any food? This guy's wife I stayed with, she says, you got to take food and she gave me a granola bar and I had my granola bar in my harness. Right. So had something, a little bit. Yeah. So, yeah, it was quite the adventure. That was 79. what? 79,
We jumped a bunch there. What did flying look like for you between 73 and 79? The guy I knew at work, we would go out with him to a little place where we walk up the hill and everybody just do a slope flying. mean, it was like a 100 foot cliff and you run off and practice. He knew more about hang gliding than I did. Then a friend of mine, I got him involved in it and we went and rented... What did we do? Oh.
We ended up buying a used glider and we shared it. One would drive, one would fly and you'd get two, three minutes of air time, like going elsewhere and landing. then we bought a second glider that had been crashed at Torrey and he was a handy guy. He built frame for this sale. And so now we had two gliders and then we each got to fly and he actually made his own harness. I found one used and that's how we got started.
I didn't fly with the community because I was a working guy. I wasn't one of these comp pilots that worked for a factory. I was this guy that had a job. I would go to this place called Cowles Mountain. It was about 800 feet to walk up. I'd get out of school at San Diego State, go over to where I worked, walk my glider up this mountain called Cowles Mountain, fly off, land behind work, pack the glider up and go to work by one o'clock. I'd get flights in.
two, three minutes. And then I remember one time, if you could do a 360, that was a big deal. Because we didn't learn how to do that. I remember the first time I did a 360 off Palomar, they said just fly it around a turn. I'm what the hell does that mean? And the only thing I knew was just go over like, well, what we were doing was slip turns. I mean, I didn't make it to the LZ. You lose 1,000 feet per turn.
Gavin McClurg (15:48.85)
So I remember one time my mom came out to see me fly off Kyle's mountain and I did one 360 at the hill and three 360s over her head. And my girlfriend says, that's the best I've ever seen you fly four 360s in a flight. That's the year of the year. is before, you you weren't thermaling. You're still, everybody's taking sled rides at this point.
I didn't, up until I went to Sylmar, we were flying Regalo standards. And that's where I saw them thermaling Regalo standards. And I did thermal lit calls on when it was blowing 20 miles an hour. And I flew Tory, which was scary to me. But I wasn't with a, I was kind of like flying on my own. I just always fly. I did that for two years. Then I linked up with some people that every Thursday they went out. So I changed my days off. And that's when I started accelerating my flying.
Has this ever been a job for you or was flying ever full time or was flying, has flying always been a pastime? No, I've always had a job. I've been, you know, just kind of a privateer guy who it's like most people, you know, they, they would make a vacation so they'd go fly a comp. And I was, then I was working through my way to, I became a supermarket manager. And so I flew on Sunday. That was my day off.
And then the guide guide got better and better. because of an influence guy, guy named George Worthington, he did all the first FAI records. Out return, distance, rigid wing. He was the guy I flew with. But we would go fly competitions where we were doing pile-on racing and we'd get our ass beat. But we were decent at cross-country flying. So we would go out every weekend and we would
we would have a task. It was a $5 bet. We had all these different sets of tasks we have. Whoever flew the best got the five bucks. I constantly paid that guy five bucks all the time. It made me become a better soaring pilot because here I'm getting low and I said, I'm not paying George another five bucks. I would work any little
Gavin McClurg (18:13.712)
bit of lift even 100 down just to stay in the air longer. that, it was good to have a guy like that who would, you know, he would challenge you. It wasn't just like, la la la fly around and, know, and drill holes in here. were make every time you fly a challenge, make it a task. And that's way it is for me today. If I get up, I'm going cross country driver or no drive.
What is this? I was told that you always you always fly with a harmonica and You you never have retrieve in mind you worry about your retrieve wherever you land Is that because you've you pull out your harmonica and people are interested in picking you up or? It's got it's got me dinner lots of times I was flying a cop in Japan one time and we were they had us flying the 60 mile task over Nope over over tiger country
trees and everything. Japanese, I see why they came up with kamikaze. They were just like doing crazy stuff. So I was flying along and I got over one bridge, the next bridge, and finally they said, bring two gliders because you're going to have to land one in the trees and then you can fly the next day and they'll have a crew take the glider out of the trees. like, wow. So I came in and said, looks like I'm going to go on the trees. I'm following down this road, which is
about the width of my wingspan, like, okay, which tree am I gonna land in? And then finally I popped over and there was a village down there. I landed in this village. So I come in under a 20 foot power line and landed a dry rice bed. And here is a school. Anyway, I'm breaking down the glider and here comes the kids out and they're all in their little uniforms and everything like that. And they come over and they look, and I don't speak any Japanese. And so I break the glider down and I hand them a piece of paper. I had two of them.
One said it was in Japanese. If you find this person, call this number, and this is before cell phone, and then they will come and get them. And so I'm sitting here, I pull out my harmonic, and I start doing, Susanna. And I'm playing the song, and they start singing in Japanese, except for the part where it goes, Susanna. That's how they sing it. And then they go right back to Japanese, and I'm cracking up. So I show this one kid this piece of paper, and he takes it and runs away.
Gavin McClurg (20:33.01)
And so then all of sudden, then he comes back and it looks like his sister and his mom and the sister going, you come, you come. And they take me over to the house and they sit me down and here's the whole family, grandparents, parents and kids having dinner. And they set me at the table, the table and feed me. I don't know what it was, but it was good. And so then the grandfather gets up and, goes over to this cabinet and pulls out this little, uh, uh, little vessel, something.
pours me a little drink of it and they're all going.
And so he stands up and goes, Kung Pa! And I go up and I stand up, yeah, Kung Pa! And I drink it. It was like turpentine swelling like gasoline. God. And my eyes are watering. And of course, the grandpa is going like, ha ha ha. Loving it, loving This guy jeaned to drink my homemade juice or whatever. And I knew that was like, I got to save face here. And I just go, can I have more?
And he just roared. of course, they're all going, yeah. That's awesome. That is the Japanese moonshine. too, before dinner. Are you trained in that? Are you a trained musician or are you just something you picked up along the way? It's something I carry with me. I used to work out in New York. I was a music major in college for a couple of years, but then I went to New York and started working. And then I toured through Europe and United States.
I'm a mallet percussionist. I know if it's timpani or marimba, but that I'm a, you play drums too. So, but just picking up any instruments, you know, I carry one with me because it's some people are on their phone. I'm on my harmonica. That's awesome. Do you play it in the air? No, but there's a guy who actually did, he used to carry his glider through the Alps and we'd do all this cross country like you guys do on this cross X cross stuff.
Gavin McClurg (22:35.054)
And he would carry his hang glider and he had this thing like a sherpa, the thing around your head when you're carrying a load. That's how I carried a glider. And I remember him taking photos, and these were with gold cameras, and he would play his harmonica in the air.
I love it. That's awesome. But you traveled in New York and Europe for music and stuff, but you've stuck with California your whole life. You've been out there in Del Mar, San Diego area. Well, I got drafted in 69 because I was out there working. I was doing tours in Europe and picking up contracts and stuff as a musician. Then I got drafted and then they end up putting me in the Marine Corps because they were putting 10 % into the Marine Corps because they were eating them up in Vietnam.
And they gave me an audition and I had good chops then. Then they came down to I can either shoot mortars in Vietnam or play in the band Aquanica Virginia. What would you pick? Yeah, I'll take the band. Thank you. Well, there's advantage. If you went to Vietnam, you'd go in for, you'd shoot mortars, which seemed kind of fun. But then you'd come back and there'd be six months left of a two-year draftee commitment.
And they just let you out early. So you're only in the service for 18 months. Ah, okay. But anybody I went to Vietnam, it was in a listed, they all came back a little tweaked. Yeah. And I'm glad I missed it because I was never a tough guy. on your mental health. Yeah, right. We're not even talking about flying. No, we're not. But that's okay. That's good. So I love hearing stories about the early days. What's the craziest thing you saw in the seventies?
And you feel free to think about that for a while. can edit out some sounds. goes on and on and on. It's just like anybody who flies. It's just when you're dealing with nature, it just, it does all kinds of things. You go to Owens and everything's magnified. So, know, so.
Gavin McClurg (24:41.676)
I just, some of the carnage stories from back then, it blows me away that you guys were all, you know, we really stand on the shoulders of giants. It was amazing when you guys were willing to huck yourself off. Like you talk about with camping and 50 knots of wind, that's sailplane wind, not king-guider wind. I end up, at one time I was working and I thought, well, what the hell? I'm going to take some time off and I...
I bought a new hang glider, which was a Wills wing at the time. And I flew, I said, I'll go fly a cop. Well, I won the cop and it was the Southern Cal regionals, which was that this is the hotbed of all the good pilots. The world champion was there. The national champion was there and I beat them all. But, I had to kind of back down flying. was only flying just like, well, he can sweat. said, so my ego was huge then. And, uh, but.
And then I said, well, I'm going to fly internationally. I'm just going to see if I can eat long. And some of my friends go like, what are you doing for work now, Butch? I said, well, I'm just a hang gliding bum with a mortgage and lots of roommates. I went and flew the pre-worlds in Australia. And then I found out, nah, you're not very good. You're good in your own backyard.
That's where I found like, I thought I was better than most. was barely mediocre compared to the international crowd. So, I mean, you want to learn to fly. You want to learn to fly and be competitive, go to Europe. Those guys are hot. And so the Brazilians and a few other people like that. And that's why I thought competition is because you, I remember reading something when you're the guys there. Yeah, I flew competition to learn more.
because you learn more in one competition than a whole year of flying. We say that a lot. Of course, you see all kinds of crazy things happen. Yeah. Any of those crazy things come to mind?
Gavin McClurg (26:56.852)
Well, there was one time I was flying cross. I was flying. was getting, giving cross country clinics. took off on a horse and I'm climbing into a cloud cover, but there was a thunderstorm behind us. I'm climbing up only a hundred feet a minute and I get to 10 grand and I'm as I'm circling all of sudden I hear and as I'm completing my turn, I watch a USA or go right by me and he misses me by a wingspan.
It was revenue. You could see people looking out of the plane. The people on the ground go, what? Did you see there's a plane that just went right by? Yeah, yeah. I said, class is off. I'm just going to go land in July. It's like 15 miles away. I like landing at July because you can land it close to town and go get pie. I'm flying over there. I go over to Laguna and the air is class smooth. I looked at the clouds.
But there's these things called marmottas. You know what a marmotta is? Yeah. Well, that's a precursor to a tornado. And I've never seen it in California. I've seen it in the comps. I've flown in New Mexico or Colorado. We were used to flying in hailstorms back there. anyway, it was pretty cool. I OK, I'll climb over the lagoon. It's like glass was, and all of a the glider immediately dumps upside down.
And I had just put my hands in these midst to keep me warm. And I'm hanging by my fingertips, upside down, trying to hold onto the glider, keep the control bar. And I fall into the frame and break the frame. Well, hang gliders, like a lot of things, will right themselves, no problem. But when it right themselves and things broken, then it just goes bam, bam, bam, and broke up. And I had a carb, all carbon glider then. And it went into a spin. And first it would do a high G spin.
And then sometimes a regular spin. then, and I, of I mean through, I threw my shoot, but the shoot, I did, it didn't, it didn't be deployed. looked down and I, okay, I redeployed. And then it comes up and wraps up in the wreckage. And so I'm going down in a high G being pulled by my arm, like a, just like a rag doll. And then sometimes it would, it would settle to a normal spin. And I found out that if I held a piece of the parachute open, it would stay in a stable spin. And,
Gavin McClurg (29:21.184)
Then I remember going from blurry to blue, blurry blue to blurry brown. And then I, bam, I hit on a rock outcropping in a ravine and I remember seeing pieces of the glider falling into the ravine. And I said, well, I'm probably done because you hit on your chest like that. And I've known guys that they hit on their chest and then all of sudden they pull their AOR out and they pass out. They're alive for a little bit.
I was still okay. What hurt? Well, my arm was lacerated from the parachute and I got out of there. then it's like all kinds of brushes around me and I finally get up and then later on, here's a helicopter right here, a shelf helicopter. And I tell him, I'm okay, don't need anything, Because I'm thinking money, money, money. They're going to try to, know. And then he said, and then he asked me to climb the ridge and
and he'll drop off his partner and give me a ride over. I said, okay. He said, yeah, I just told Lifelight to head back. And there were like three agencies there that somebody saw this hang glider go down. And that was the adventure. But there was a good thing out of it. I ended up getting a sponsorship for a new parachute. I got a sponsorship for Swivel and I got a sponsorship from an air deployment company. And I ended up, when I go out and do all these cross country clinics, I used to go around the country.
I had it with eight sponsors and that helped pay for my fine gliding. So the takeaway is rec more often. Yeah, and that's without Facebook and internet.
Amazing. Is that your only accident? Have you had others? There's been crazy. I mean, I've been flipped upside down four times. When you lose control bar, it's bad. I even got, I got turned upside down a blossom right in front of Susan was flying right next to me. I got turned upside down right above and I was going,
Gavin McClurg (31:30.25)
parachute and then I go like, I still got the control bar. And so I, and the glider was like almost like that. I'm not a good race full. Didn't fully tumble, I remember his hand is basically straight down. Yeah. there's the past and I remember it's a parachute, but I still got the control bar. So I remember stuffing the bar and then flaring it, pushing out and then doing a hard turn. And she said, I missed the top of the hill by 10 by 10 feet.
And, and then I would see this like stars cause I pulled so many G's and, and then I ended up going on. But I'd always, anytime I get in trouble like that, I always fly back to where I just got in big trouble and go, nah, nah, nah, nah, Like, know, you didn't give me this guy. deal with the fear injury. Yeah. And then I went, I went and landed and they said they could hear me scream from the LZ down in the valley. And I, didn't, I don't remember screaming.
Except, you know, that's about it. That means screaming from kind of excitement, like, yeah, I got it. I did it. Or screaming from, holy shit, I almost died. When stuff like it goes by, you're just kind of like, huh. And anytime, I've been tumbled four times and it messes up your, your turbulence tolerance. Because every time that glider seems going to pick up or do something to you, you think, the way you're good. And it just kills it. And I've seen that happen for many pilots.
In competitions, they get flipped upside down and it takes them off their edge. Where if they're doing aerobatics and they brush their glider, no problem. But when the nature does it, it really messes their mind up. And I don't know how these paragliders, I mean, these are brave people, their wings collapsing all the time and they're going cross country and handling all that. How do you handle it? Well, you know what? I think
Wings have gotten better too. don't, they don't, if you're flying them well, they don't collapse very much anymore. I mean, you're going to get little tip collapses, but, you know, just doesn't, it doesn't happen nearly as much as when I was learning. So either I've gotten better or the wings have, the wings have changed. You know, when you're flying two-liner, more high aspect wings, you really can't let them go. It's not good to let them go. You can bite pretty hard. it's, you know, you get better at keeping them open. I've heard that from lots of paragliding pilots because I tried it in 89.
Gavin McClurg (33:57.376)
I was out at Fiche flying the World Meet. We had a blown out day and somebody had a paraglider and we played with it in the field and I flew it off the next morning off the top. I think I had to reverse, fly out and then go out down land and then went up for the competition later on that month. So you've never transitioned over. You've stuck with HG all the way through. I was too busy having too much fun on my hang glider and then I tried it again on Marshall. Guy let me try his paraglider.
I said, I tried this. said, you you pull a ride to both left, you know, that's all there's nothing to it. It's easy. And there's a lot of early hang glider pods in the nineties. They got into it and they're like, and then, but they don't a lot of really good ones smacked in because they're doing that downwind base leg thing. And all of a the glider goes and they're doing it close to the ground. So, uh, it just never got, and I thought, well, I'll just stick with the frame. That's why we call it a frame.
I like the frame. You, you said in your email that you, had a hiatus from, can't remember the years. What was that all about? When I was, I was in the, I was on the world team about seven years and, uh, uh, it was like late eighties, 86 through 94 is when I competed a lot. And that's when I did my best.
The people I flew against were 10, 15, sometimes 20 years younger than me. I would just like the old guy flying like I am today.
Gavin McClurg (35:34.592)
When you, when you, so you, so there wasn't really a hiatus that was, that was. That's what I did my best. Oh, okay. Okay. Okay. got you. applied several needs and I'd win one or two a year, you know, something like that. Yeah. I said, as I use phrase, like as being a musician, like when I went to New York, I thought it was going to be, I thought it was good. No, I was mediocre compared to people with talent. I learned that, you know, I'm better than most, but not good as some. Yeah.
And that's, then those better than most were usually in Europe or Australia or Brazil, you know, and if you could, I mean, like once I went Australia, I won the day and then, then it went downhill for the rest of me. Most people like crawling your way up. was descending down.
Butch, when you had that incident where you landed in the ravine, your glider's all broken up, you threw your reserve, but it didn't sound like it really properly deployed, it sounded like you hit pretty hard. Was it hard to come back from that? Were you pretty shaky after that or were you able to get right back on the horse? As I said, for a while there, you fly, every time the glider wants to like, the back end wants to lift up, you think, oh my God! And it just kills your flying.
One thing was it I took one one day to get the glider pieces up to a top of the ridge with some friends and the second day I went in and got the we got got the glider out the next day. I thought I was breaking out in Poison oak so I went to the doctor with Susan and then they give me a blood test and then then he come back says you don't have poison oak you have shingles and I said shingles how do you get shingles? They said well, know a lot of stress or life-threatening situation
And Susie and I are just laughing. And it's funny how you internalize something like that, that, you know, you don't think it affects you, but it does. So, know that's question, but that's funny how we do this. You internalized all that stress and fear and it came out and shingles, which I've heard is no fun. Yeah. So that's the only stressful situation I can...
Gavin McClurg (37:59.754)
I mean, there's been a lot of situations I've been in that, you you come out of and, you know, but it's like cutting margins. How close, you know, if you keep cutting margin, cutting margin, cutting margin, the new margin becomes a new normal, but the new normal, I mean, that new, margin is so thin, doesn't, that's what happens to all these wingsuit people. You know, they, they, they do all these videos where they, they thick takes to get that, they get that, that, that, that,
that one shot, but they're cutting the march and then all of sudden one little hiccup. so I back a lot of that stuff down nowadays. How old are you now? 77. 77. And you fly most days you were saying? I fly whenever I can. And I mean, I'm retired. I got a 15 year younger wife and keep telling Susan, go to work. You got to pay for my toys.
And that's basically what I, and that. Susan fly? You've mentioned her a few times. She flew until she was about 57. Then she quit when she says, you know, I can't, don't fly enough to be safe. Yeah. Your best insurance is flying and we're not, and she'll, got stuff to be done, but then all of sudden I get lured away. Hey, it's time to go flying. You know, somebody said, Hey, we're going to go flying. I'm out of here. And she goes, well, how, what'd what'd you get? How was your day? Which did you get any chores done? And, it's it. No, but I went fly. She says, well, you do need to fly. I mean, so.
That's cool. You got to have a supportive spouse. You mentioned instructing. Are you still instructing? No, mean, would have up to six, then I used to have like six people and we'd have a class and sit down and then I would take six people cross country. And I would get them though from San Diego to Palm Springs. But even with eating made of gliders, mean, you can get them 25 miles. mean, I had a guy had been flying like,
nine months and first day I worked on just teaching them how to thermal better. Then the second day we got them 25 miles. So, you know, that's what I did. That's what I did well then. But I don't instruct now. mean, basically, you know, I drove for a bunch of paraglider pilots a year ago, October. And I know I've been flying Owens. I knew Owens like the back of my hand, not as good as a local, but they were doing this naturally, you know, but.
Gavin McClurg (40:24.672)
those guys had a lot of stuff already figured out. So, I mean, I can't give much advice to the, to much products because they got it all figured out. They just, they just, they're all, I'm in a car with Butch rambling stories here that comes. It reminds me of these different situations. back in the day. Have you, did you have any mentors back then in your own flying that you've stayed in touch with over the years?
Well, the guy George Worthington I mentioned who actually established the FAI records and stuff like that, he was a manor. then he got taken out when he was trying to put together a meet where they did ultralights. his dream, because he was a sailplane pilot, and he wanted to have an ultralight that could take off from the ground, which there is now. It's called a Swift with electric motor. And you can do your self-launching. That was his dream.
But he was having running this contest and then, but, uh, the wing broke off his ultra light and I lost him in 1983 and he was only 63. Uh, that was the main, but that's why I went to cops cause there were just so many good pilots. And I, I, I couldn't believe it. US pilots, they weren't that helpful. I go to Europe and then there was the world champion. I'm flying and it's meat. said, I said, Hey, uh,
What would you think about our task?" And Wacom says, well, Butch, I'm going to probably do this and this and maybe we can do that. They tell me what they're going to do. that's good stuff. then I don't know if comps do this anymore, I used to impress anybody who wins the day has to debrief the whole crowd at the end the next day and say, how'd you do it? What'd you do? Because we all want to learn. And I got lucky.
Do you ever go through a real kind of distance chasing phase? Larry Tudor and those guys, was that ever a thing? I never got like, I I need to fly distance. I just want to do the best of the day. I mean, in 87, we flew this meet off a place called Ord and they used to call competitions where you said, okay, it's an, it's an unreachable goal. You fly along far as long as this line as you can go. that's, that's how, cause they didn't have real normal scoring stuff. They didn't have a.
Gavin McClurg (42:48.064)
They just landed as far as you could go. That's what they were pushing on in 87. It was 86, 87. Anyway, so they called independence. It's like, I don't know, 150, 160 miles away. So we take off. We break airspace. go over Georgia Air Force Base. We break that airspace. Then we go through Edwards Air Force Base. We break that space. We go through
China Lake, we break that airspace. And then we hit the, we get into Owens Valley and we're flying up toward Lone Pine. a lot of us landed at O Pine, but this guy named Larry Tudor almost made independence, which is, you know, just crazy. And he wanted to meet, you know, because he was doing like great stuff like that too, but. The dark prince. I can.
He's the beanie most of the meets, but I best, I best, I bet that everybody at least once. Yeah. That's awesome. Awesome. You do enough mileage, you're going to get lucky. Yeah. Yeah. That's true. You're to have your day. And then, what, this might be hard to articulate, but what has kept you so wrapped with flying all these years, 51 years of flying. What's, what's the thing that keeps you going out to the Hill? Well, I hear it from other people, you, you're
totally alive when you're flying. When I used to have some higher stress jobs, the one day I went flying, I didn't think about anything else. And it was a respite. I mean, asked people, the most people I ever talked to was 60 people in one of these clinics in the old golden Colorado. And I always start my talk out, how many of you had flying dreams before you got into flying?
Everybody raises their hand except maybe one person out of the 60. How about you? Did you ever fly a flying dream before you got into flying? Oh yeah, definitely. That's what we live for. And I can remember the flying dreams I had when I was seven years old. The day I tried a hang glider, I go, this is it. And I had tried a cell plane, I had tried flying an airplane, and I didn't try a helicopter until later in life. And I go, this is it. This is my flying dream.
Gavin McClurg (45:15.127)
is as close as I've got. And that was before we could go cross country. So you're playing with the forces of nature that gets you into the air and then you can go over the horizon. And I mean, that's wondrous. It's that we live this time of this time, this presence that we can carry something with us either on our back or on our car.
And transports us. We're sailing. We're three-dimensional sailors. That's what we are. That's wonderful. Don't you think? Yes, very much so. I'm curious, your partner, Sandy, your wife, what was her name? Susan. Yeah. Susan. When she, I'm sure she thought about it the same way, when she stopped flying, what was that like for her? What was that like watching her?
Go through that. you can take the girl out of flying, but you can't take the flying out of the girl. Since then, she flown cell planes, she went to float a motorized trike, even thermal then. And she'll go out with me when I want. so she's still flying. She's just not flying. She says, I don't fly enough to... She's an excellent lander, but she's flying. Her glider was just way too big for it. She was always having problems to take off with it. she's like, there's a lot of things I still want to do.
And I'm getting older. If I get hurt, I can't do them. So right now, until I get time, you know, because she retired from teaching last year, but now she's working for a private school. So, you know, she just loves to fly. I I met her on the training hill, I mean, at Horse Canyon. And I don't remember meeting her. She said she came and talked to me, but I remember running into her in Mexico.
city. I mean, not Mexico City, but in Mexico, they were flying out flying in and, and then like the fourth time I met her, that's when we had a conversation and she was a person that's just like mind, except she's way smarter than that.
Gavin McClurg (47:31.535)
you do you, have, I have people that reach out from time to time who have been in the sport as you have, you know, for a long time. And it's something I started thinking about as well. You know, I'm 52, you do start thinking about, uh, longevity in the sport, also durability, endurance, know, the hard landings are easier to take when you're 20, you know, uh, we can walk away from stuff easier when we're more resilient, I guess. Uh, if you change,
how you fly because of your age? that alter your approach? Yeah. What's happened is I still fly a topless. I can fly it well. I can take it off, but landings are really hard because you're topless. You're screaming in. And I had to go through this transition of trying to, I'm still having problems landing. It's like 50 % of my landings are ta-da!
but a lot of them are like, the auger in. And as you get older, you can't handle the speed, you don't react as fast. And I mean, you got some wind, sure, you'll get away with it. But I've had to really kind of back off. used to, I had this range I could have had, 180 degrees of skill task. Now I'm down to like a 30 degree range. I don't take 45 degree.
and more takeoffs, crosswinds. I've reeled everything back so I can still keep doing it. Then I also bought a single service glider so I can fly more. And it's something that's slow as a paraglider, flies as slow as a paraglider. So I'm like, well, maybe I can get a glider, I can fly with these guys. But I still don't have the sync rate, but I'm flying with the same glide ratio. And in a way, it sucks, because I'm used to...
flying it between 10 to one to 15 to one. I mean, my glider, my topless glider at 48 miles an hour, it'll get a 10 to one. And then I, but when I'm flying this single surface, I'm flying at 30 miles an hour and it's saying four to one, five to one, three to one. I talk to this guy named Rob, he does all our weather. I go, God, this sucks flying at this speed. He says, well, now you know what we deal with. But he still goes, fuck.
Gavin McClurg (49:58.831)
Except he's sitting on a couch, going down with his feet out in front of him. I'm proud. So I've reeled things back. That's what I have to do. But I have to fly because that'll keep me safer. Yeah. Currency is important, it? Yeah. When was the last copy? still do pushups. That's the only thing I do. then just do some walks. I had to quit running because I had a...
I used to carry my glider up Blossom and that's an 82 pound glider. Then I bought an Xterra which it can take it. It'll get it up Blossom. I don't know how far that is but the paraglider is about a walk at all the time but I was carrying the glider up. What was the last comp you did?
Gavin McClurg (50:53.263)
Kind of like some one-day comps. I flew one in Sylmar. I didn't do too well, but I had one three comps there before. I got, oh, Susan bought me a new glider, 2011 glider one time, and I had to have air time, so friends were coming down. It a little one-day comp running back and forth, doing pylons. And I said, okay, I'll just go fly it for, just to get some air time. And went out there and they said, hey, well,
you don't have the right kind of variable. doesn't ping these cylinders. I go, okay, I'll just fly the meat anyway to worry about it. They said, we'll give you a variable that does it. Well, I wanted the meat. In fact, I was the only one to complete the task. I hadn't flown up there for like 10, 15 years and nobody knew who I mean, they knew that I used to fly there much or anything like that. But I remember doing the last turn point and I said, Susan.
I'm coming in about five miles out and she goes, are you still in the air? You won. Everybody landed. I said, okay. And then they looked at my track and I was way down in ravines and stuff like that, but I was having fun. It was the stuff I used to do anyway. And they were used to racing. was super marginal conditions and I'm really good at scratching for a handler. Not compared to a paratrooper.
pilot, but for Angle pilot. Where do think you got that skill from? Was that from those early days of Worthington? George Worthington. was about right there down. We've learned over the decades that the British are really good at scram, especially when comps are really light because they take off these tiny hills and they got to survive in really light conditions. It's the opposite of the Owens.
Man, that's a good skill when you can just survive. Oh, yeah. I was sponsored by a British company on a hang glider. And I hung out with the British team. I said, how do you guys do this? Well, we have the English way of flying. I go, what's that? If it's 100 up, turn. If you got zero up, turn. If you got 100 down, think about it.
Gavin McClurg (53:19.998)
You might need a turn because 100 down is not, at least you got something pushing up a window. It's something. And I always remember that. mean, they're just good scratchers. Yeah. Yeah. They hang with it. They're very, very patient and that could be very They're flying in dreary conditions a lot of times. That's it. And they're weaving into all these, I mean, the Brits are Nazis above all these
air, you know, these, these air spaces they can't go into, they can't do that. Can't do this. I don't know. I mean, that, that, that's a lot of basket weaving. Yeah, that's right. I mean, I think they just, get good at it flying slow, which is an important skill sometimes. butch, if you could rewind the clock, I've got this question. I didn't ask this for years. I used to ask this all the time, but lately I've been bringing it back because we just had Chuck Smith on the show and I wanted to.
wanted to ask him this one and I'll ask it with you. If you could rewind the clock to your 50 year self, so somewhere in those 73, 74, 75, I guess it would have taken quite a while to get 50 hours when you're taking two, three minutes sled rides back then all the time. But if you could rewind to that version of yourself and come down out of the sky and say, hey, Butch, I got some advice for you. What would you say?
You mean the advice for myself? Yeah. Knowing everything, you know, now, you know, so your 77 year old self gets to go back to your whatever it was, 26, 27, 28 year old self and say, Hey, I got some advice for you. What would you say? that's like anything. Just do what you love and, don't let, don't, don't, don't let life get in your way.
go do the things you love to do. just, I mean, we get drawn into, there's so many paths to go on in life. I mean, there's, you you got family and friends and relationships and stuff like that. mean, that's a track I took. When I ran into Susan, then I found somebody who was in tune with the way I thought. And she flew. If she didn't fly, wouldn't have married her anyway.
Gavin McClurg (55:42.497)
I was 43 when I married. didn't, I I wasn't going to get married. So I followed that. mean, and we never had kids because we're almost the same tune. We're, too self-centered, selfish and non-nurturing, even though she teaches school. So we were just like, we want to go play. And if you're that kind of person, I meet them all the time. that's what the paraglider guys, they're, they're always going down to Columbia. They're doing this or flying.
in the Italian Alps, what do they call it? That one place, it's a great place. I want to go there, know, it's just, I'm bioclicist, and I just continue, just do the things you love. And now I, mean, and you get married, yeah, you end up being part of it, but marry somebody or get with somebody who loves what you love.
I mean, we're all hot when we're young, but it's have somebody that has a lot of things in common. I mean, I remember one time I was out at Torrey Pines and this guy said, this talking to students says, butch is so lucky that you married him. She goes, why is that? Well, he can talk, tell you talk about a flight and your eyes don't glaze over. But find somebody that your, eyes don't glaze over when you talked to him about what you love. man. You're not making me feel very good about my relationship.
I took her for a tandem and about two minutes into it, she's looking back on, so what are we doing on Friday? Yeah, you're not that into this, are you? no. Yeah. I broke a girlfriend's arm on a training hill. Like, I love this so much. Everybody should do it. No. I even got my mother to fly a hang glider. I put her on a training hill. She ran down the hill, launched the thing, landed, flared, stopped the glider.
I run it down after I said, I said, was it? She goes, that was great. I said, you want to do it again? No.
Gavin McClurg (57:48.589)
And she was 57 years old. She was not athletic person.
pretty funny. You know, gravitate toward the people who love what you love. That's a definition of happiness instead of a tug of Tug of war. Yeah. Tug of wars are not fun. And I've trained so many drivers. I would get a girlfriend and I would just groom her. would have these, I would have her. I was trainer on how to, we'd start on easy roads to drive and to retrieve, retrieve, retrieve. And then we'd end up.
I just work her way up and then they end up, couple of them end up really good Owens Valley drivers. That was the test. That was the ultimate place to, you know, they were using CB radios and later on two meters. I would groom girlfriends to drive. didn't talk about it. I bet you ripped through a few girlfriends doing that though. bet a lot of them didn't make it too far. Yeah.
I even of backed up. Driving isn't for everybody. I backed down and hanged like this for a couple years. I'd only fly a little bit and I said, well, maybe I'm going through too many relationships. I was doing all the ground things, playing tennis, taking dance lessons, doing stuff with her friends and all that stuff. It was okay. I'm a social guy. I'm a really gabby guy. then she goes, ah, this isn't working. I said, great. I went and bought a glider and flew a cop.
Gavin McClurg (59:25.359)
Love it. Butch, appreciate it, man. Thanks for your time. I'd love to keep chatting here, but I've got a role. But I really appreciate sitting down with you and look forward to flying with you. I'm hoping to get out there in late February, earlier March and love to fly with you in your home site. can show me around. Yep. Whatever you do, you may not be right, but do it with enthusiasm.
Gavin McClurg (59:58.351)
Perfect place to end. Doos-yasm. Love it. Thanks buddy. All right. Appreciate talking to you.
Gavin McClurg (01:00:10.265)
find the cloud-based mayhem valuable you can support it in a lot of different ways. You can give us a rating on iTunes or Stitcher or however you get your podcast that goes a long ways and helps spread the word. You can blog about it on your own website or share it on social media. You can talk about it on the way out to launch with your pilot friends. I know a lot of interesting conversations have happened that way and of course you can support us financially. This show does take a lot of time, a lot of editing.
lot of storage and music and all kinds of behind-the-scenes cost. So if you can support us financially all we've ever asked for is a buck a show and you can do that through a one-time donation through PayPal or you can set up a subscription service that charges you for each show that comes out. We put a new show out every two weeks so for example if you did a buck a show and every two weeks it'd be about $25 a year so way cheaper than a magazine subscription and it makes all of this possible.
I do not want to fund this show with advertising or sponsors. We get asked about that pretty frequently, but for a whole bunch of different reasons, which I've said many times on the show, I don't want to do that. I don't like having that stuff at the front of the show. And I also want you to know that these are authentic conversations with real people and these are just our opinions, but our opinions are not being skewed by sponsors or advertising dollars. I think that's a pretty toxic business model. So I hope you dig that.
You can support us if you go to cloudbasemaheim.com you can find the places to support you can do it through patreon.com forward slash cloud based mayhem. If you want a recurring subscription, you can also do that directly through the website. We've tried to make it really easy and that will give you access to all the bonus material, little video cast that we do and extra little nuggets that we find in conversations that don't make it into the main show. But we feel like you should hear. We don't put any of that behind a paywall. If you can't afford to support us then.
just let me know and I'll set you up with an account. Of course, that'll be lifetime. And hopefully you're being in position someday to be able to support us. But you'll find all that on the website. All of you who have supported us or even joined our newsletter or bought cloud-based mayhem merchandise, t-shirts or hats or anything, you should be all set up. You should have an account. You should be able to access all that bonus material now. Thank you so much for listening. I really appreciate your support and we'll see you on the next show. Thank you.
