Four years ago almost to the day we released a podcast with veteran UK pilot/adventurer Tim Pentreath that explored his “Gumball Rally”- a vol biv adventure open to anyone in the Alps every summer. At that time Tim and his friends were just getting getting started. This show is a follow up with Tim to find out how it’s been going. The answer- quite well indeed! The Gumball continues to grow, continues to generate a ton of smiles, and they continue to cover a lot of very cool ground. But it isn’t about breaking records, it’s just about having a lot of safe fun. Heading off onto your first bivvy can be quite daunting, especially in the Alps if you don’t live there (and even if you do!). In this conversation we delve into the organization of the rally (free to anyone interested!), personal experiences, safety measures, and the importance of weather in planning. Tim shares insights on how to prepare for such adventures, the technology used for forecasting, and memorable flights that stand out. The conversation emphasizes the joy of flying in the Alps while also addressing the challenges and safety considerations involved. They discuss their recent flying adventures, including memorable flights over the Alps and the challenges faced during the Gumball event. They reflect on how their perspectives on flying have shifted with age, focusing more on the aesthetic experience rather than competition. The duo also shares insights on preparing for the winter season, their gear preferences, and the thrill of high-speed aviation experiences, highlighting the differences between paragliding and other forms of flight. Enjoy!
Tim has an AMAZING youtube channel that documents the rally and his own personal flights in the Alps and the UK. Check it out. The films are really well done and very inspiring.
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Gavin McClurg (00:08.378)
Tim, good to have you on the show again, man. How are you?
Tim (00:10.37)
Kevin, pleasure. Yeah, I'm very well, thank you. Yeah, it's a pleasure to be on your show again. Thanks very much.
Gavin McClurg (00:19.28)
Yeah, well, you know, last time I saw you in person, I believe was we were up there at the lakes and I can't, I don't know, 2016, 2017. It's been a while, but I have been keenly following your, your gumball rallies. That's what you call them, right? Your gumball rallies across the Alps. Trans Alp rally. Yeah.
Tim (00:36.815)
Gumball Trans Alp Rally. Yeah, named after that movie, the Gumball 3000.
Gavin McClurg (00:44.64)
Yeah, I mean, it's been, you do a really good job of documenting it. And what I love about it is just, it just seems like an outrageous good time. It's just really fun. It seems like that's the goal, right? It's just to have a really good time.
Tim (00:59.887)
That's basically it, yeah. it's have fun, be safe, and to introduce, you know, experienced flyers who are experienced in the mountains as well, but who've never quite plucked up courage to do Volbiv on their own. You know, to be able to do it in a supportive environment. Not necessarily sticking together as a group the whole time, but...
I mean, we've had big numbers on some of the recent ones, so it's never going to stick together as a group. you can find your level within it and stick with a smaller group.
Gavin McClurg (01:38.478)
And how do you go about organizing it? And what are the rules, the ramifications? I can anybody join? Does it cost money? All those kind of things. How do you handle the logistics of it all?
Tim (01:52.081)
It's, it's, everyone is aware that it's, you know, everyone's on their own when they're there, really, you know, you have to be able to fend for yourself. if a random person comes up to me and says, can I join? always make sure I have a check out of their flights on X contest or whatever. Just to check that they've done some flights, you know, in Alpine sort of environment. I mean, it's one thing flying 100K out and return
in beer, example, where you just blatting up and down a ridge effectively with no valley winds, but in the Alps, it can be a different story. And as for cost, there's no cost apart from, know, nothing. don't charge anything. Once you start charging, you get into all sorts of legal ramifications in France, especially, you know, because you're effectively an instructor or a guide and it's, you know, lose the house scenario.
Gavin McClurg (02:29.785)
Yeah.
Gavin McClurg (02:36.834)
Right.
Gavin McClurg (02:43.279)
Sure.
Tim (02:50.157)
if it went very badly wrong.
Gavin McClurg (02:50.722)
And you've done it every summer, For the last, what edition was this last one?
Tim (02:57.65)
Well, this would have been the fourth sort of official Gumball, should we say that it's if you like, there was a pre a prequel, a pre Gumball in 2018. No, wait. Twenty nineteen was the first one I did with a bunch of mates. The year before that, I just did a short Volby with my buddy Nigel, Nigel Cooper, who actually joined us on this year's Gumball, which was great. But yes, in 2019, just four of us.
did the same, did basically that trip and then 2020 we actually called it the Gumball TransOut Rally. So yeah, fourth edition. So next year, fifth year, it'll be a big one.
Gavin McClurg (03:35.98)
and what's the maximum number?
Yeah, what's the maximum number of pilots you've had on it?
Tim (03:46.131)
23, sorry, 2023. No, no, 2023. There were probably more than 23. There was probably, I think it was about 25 of us. There was a whole bunch of Northern lads who came down from the Lake District who really swelled the numbers. This year, I think it was 13, which is a good size. Yeah.
Gavin McClurg (03:48.14)
Holy smokes.
Gavin McClurg (03:53.416)
Wow!
Gavin McClurg (03:59.471)
Wow.
Gavin McClurg (04:05.026)
Okay. And then, are you the kingpin when it comes to, okay, this is the route and this is where we're going to start and end? mean, do you kind of do that? I mean, is everybody kind on the same page?
Tim (04:18.246)
Yeah.
Yeah, I mean, people can, you know, a few people, well, most people will join, you know, we traditionally started in St. André, down in the south of France. In 2023, because of the forecast down there, we actually started in Chamrousse near Grenoble. And that was a sort of fairly last minute decision to change. Yeah, we'll discuss it and...
You beforehand we go through, I do some zoom calls and we go through the routes for people who are not familiar with that area. Talk about crux points, you know, maybe even go into the detail of what sort of height you need to cross certain valleys, etc. So, yeah, we do a bit of briefing beforehand. Yeah.
Gavin McClurg (05:17.206)
And is the style of it, you know, try to top land at the end of the day and fully bivvy or is the style of it, you know, sometimes bivvy, sometimes jump in a hotel. How does all that work?
Tim (05:34.453)
It's entirely up to personal preference. mean, yeah, it's obviously it's the best times are when you get a group of you and you land up high and you have a brilliant night together and then short hike to a takeoff in the morning or whatever. But some people prefer, you know, a nice steak and glass of wine.
Gavin McClurg (06:00.063)
Easy to find in the arms.
Tim (06:01.138)
Steve you know who you are if he listens to this and Cyprian yeah they like their they like their steaks so I mean yeah that's not every night of course but yeah so it's a personal preference
Gavin McClurg (06:08.194)
Ha
Gavin McClurg (06:15.317)
And if you got, okay, if you got quite an international crew there, or is it mostly Brits, or how does that work?
Tim (06:23.99)
It's mostly Brits, but we've had some couple of Americans over the years. We've had Italians, we've had French, we've had Venezuelan pilots. So yeah, it's pretty multinational. Yeah, majority of Brits for sure. But yeah, we've had a great cross section.
Gavin McClurg (06:46.599)
Yeah.
Gavin McClurg (06:52.421)
How does your own personal packing work? I mean, are you are you or how does your own style? What is it? What are you trying to accomplish? mean, are you are you filling your bag with five days of stuff or two days or you know, are you always trying to tent or?
Tim (07:07.423)
us
Yeah, my preference is always to camp somewhere. Yeah, okay, if the weather turns really bad, then I'll see if I can sofa surf or, you know, couch surf somewhere or take a B &B or whatever. there's only been one time, can't remember which year it was, when I ended up actually staying a couple of nights in, not, not.
My immediate family is sort of chalet, but sort of my brother's wife's family have a chalet in Verbier and yeah, had a couple of pleasant nights there during some bad weather. But yeah, so I will pack normally about five days worth of adventure food and breakfast and stuff. yeah, and that normally works out pretty well for if you're going for about 10 days, you end up eating out.
You know, get evening meals some quite a lot of the time. Coffee and croissants quite all the time. There's always restaurants everywhere.
Gavin McClurg (08:12.876)
Yeah. Do you guys fix?
Yeah, sure. It's so easy in the albs. Do you guys typically fix a week way in advance or is it really weather driven? Okay, everybody's ready to go at a moment's notice and you peel out from bath and head down when it looks like you got a good window.
Tim (08:33.751)
Yeah, I mean, I think that would be ideal to do that. But for quite a lot of people, it's just unrealistic. They need to book the holidays in advance. So, we, you know, we're looking at dates at the moment. Historically, we've been pretty lucky in July. 2023, the weather was not so good that week. This year, we really hit it.
Gavin McClurg (08:41.611)
Yeah.
Tim (09:02.458)
We were pretty lucky actually this year because the weather in the Alps has generally been pretty mixed, should we say. And yeah, we got a great week. in fact, more. Yeah, about a week before it turned and then a couple of guys stayed on, carried on flying a bit longer. In fact, one guy, Raphael, Polish guy, he spent a month out there, I think, or six weeks just slowly and steadily making his way.
east towards Slovenia is incredible. Yeah, it's always a bit of a gamble, but we do have bit of flexibility with destinations or starting points, know, destinations. What I mean by that is where we fly to from the UK. You know, we can we we can we change, like I said last year from St. André to Chamarouse just because it was super windy down in St. André.
for basically a week, it looked like.
Gavin McClurg (10:03.723)
Are you typically flying into Nice then and getting up to San Andres? Yeah. Yeah. And then...
Tim (10:07.213)
Yeah, most people are, yeah. Yeah, and it's such a nice little journey from Nice up to St. André on the train. It's fantastic.
Gavin McClurg (10:16.585)
Yeah, it's beautiful. then are you you destination unknown every time you don't have anything in mind? I would imagine, right? You're just going to go as far as you can. Yeah.
Tim (10:27.195)
As far as you can, yeah, until the weather changes or you run out of time or whatever. we follow roughly the same route up towards Chamonix and then head down the Rhône Valley.
Gavin McClurg (10:44.405)
So you kind of back door into verbiage typically and then jump and start flying up the volus and then keep going. What's the farthest you guys have made it so far of all the years?
Tim (10:48.6)
Yeah.
Tim (10:56.06)
But, well, first, yeah, which I think it was probably 2020, I think I was at 21. I can't remember. I made it to almost to Bassano. So that's about 800 kilometers over 10 days. And that was, you know, I was on my own by that stage.
Others were Chris made it to Lake Como, I think. Yeah. I mean, but some guys say again.
Gavin McClurg (11:29.995)
And this was in July? This was in July that year?
Tim (11:36.477)
Yeah, yeah, it's always been in July, yeah. In fact, I think two years ago, Roberto, he's the Venezuelan pilot and Cyprian is Romanian but lives in the UK. They made it all the way to Slovenia. They just stayed on. I think they had a month or three weeks. So yeah, some people have done the full trans-outs really. I've never done, you know, I've run out of time before then, so I've never managed to do the whole thing.
Gavin McClurg (11:39.88)
Always been in July.
Gavin McClurg (11:59.496)
Yeah.
Gavin McClurg (12:08.523)
I guess because most of the time you're tenting or bivvying, in July have you found it, I'm asking questions because I get a lot of people asking about, hey I want to do my first bivvy in July, so I'm going ask you lot of these kind of generic questions that people just don't know, is it hard to find accommodation?
Obviously you can't book anything in advance. You don't know where you're gonna be. is it, because I know it gets tends to get more busy kind of early July when the kids start getting out of school and lot of travel or especially post COVID.
Tim (12:41.213)
I mean, France, France, I don't think there's any problem in July because August is traditionally when all the French go on holidays.
Gavin McClurg (12:49.106)
Yeah.
Tim (12:53.02)
I don't think anyone's had any problems. This is obviously for people who, if the weather's bad, they want to find a B &B or whatever or hotel. I don't think there's a problem really. mean, refugios in Italy, they're dotted around the place. I don't know whether you have much luck just landing by them and...
Gavin McClurg (12:55.379)
Hmm, just fine stuff.
Gavin McClurg (13:05.737)
It's never been an issue.
Tim (13:22.809)
asking for a bed, I don't know, I suspect in July you're probably okay.
Gavin McClurg (13:24.892)
Mm. Yeah, yeah. You know, when I've done that...
Tim (13:28.851)
The mountains are never crowded though, there's always space on top of a mountain.
Gavin McClurg (13:33.062)
Yeah, that's right, isn't it? I mean, I guess it's quite a bit different in June, but that last June when I did the X-Alps coverage, so I wasn't racing in it, but the refugios were super easy. Tres Simei was fine. The one in the Brenta was fine. Yeah, you just rock up, knock on the door, and it okay. But that's June. I know June's less busy even.
Tim (13:47.346)
Yeah.
Tim (14:03.772)
Yeah, think, yeah, come August you might have issues in some of the more popular areas, but, you know, they're scattered all over the place. I think unless you're trying to land on the side of Mont Blanc or something, you'd probably be okay.
Gavin McClurg (14:19.561)
Yeah, right, right. I'm curious from those initial years, just you and a mate in 2018 and then up to more than 20, what has changed for you, if anything, philosophically, safety-wise? What are some of the, looking back, some of the points that have helped define how you do it?
Tim (14:53.727)
Good question. Yeah, there's...
Tim (14:58.281)
Nothing intrinsically has really changed. always, it's always been a, you know, we're always flying and making plans in a supportive and collaborative sort of manner, sharing ideas, looking at weather forecasts together, that sort of thing, looking out for each other. We have had, you know, we have had people injure themselves.
previous years, including myself actually.
Tim (15:34.216)
And we've got a sort of network of people back home who are also sort of looking out for us on live track and spotting if something looks amiss. So, you know, there is an emphasis on safety. There's an emphasis on everyone, you know, reports in when they land and effectively does a sign to fly in the morning, you know, before they take off saying they're intending to.
fly today. So yeah, I mean that works because we say we've got 20 people we'll split into we'll have sort of four or five different little safety groups, telegram groups and have a sort of team leader in each in each group as it were who's responsible for making sure everyone signs in and signs out as it were.
Gavin McClurg (16:26.354)
What, do you guys communicate? Are you using radios or just telegram groups, in reach? What's the kind of stuff you guys have for safety?
Tim (16:36.447)
When on the grounds we, it will tend to be Telegram. In the air, it's been a mixture in the past of some people using Zello, some people using radios. This year and I think last year I went Zello only. I just didn't want the extra weight and complications of a radio having to have a charger and all that malarkey. So yeah, cheap.
Gavin McClurg (16:40.647)
Okay.
Gavin McClurg (16:59.526)
Yeah
Tim (17:05.89)
cheap headset with a little boom mic and a Bluetooth headset. And it works really well in the Alps. And it's great. This is Zello. It's great being able to answer people who have got questions in the air or like there was last year, well, I'll say last year, this year, There was an occasion where I was like 50 miles ahead of
of some other guys and I hadn't taken off yet or I'd landed, can't quite remember and I could see what this guy Craig was doing and I said avoid them, you know, and I knew who was on Zello and were well outside radio range but I was able to tell him, you know, take that route, don't do what I did because it didn't work for me and he managed to glide all the way to Fisch.
Gavin McClurg (17:59.386)
Mm. Mm.
Tim (18:02.915)
whereas I landed just south of this. So that really worked well.
Gavin McClurg (18:03.382)
cool.
Gavin McClurg (18:07.783)
Huh. Cool. Yeah.
Tim (18:09.335)
So yeah, I think I'll be encouraging everyone to get a Bluetooth headset and a push to talk and use Zello, yeah.
Gavin McClurg (18:14.641)
Yeah.
Gavin McClurg (18:18.149)
Yeah, that was what we used in the last couple of my X-OPS campaigns, which with a lot of success. I mean, none of the X-OPS people fly with radios, but you got to have something pretty good. And we found that that worked really, really pretty well. I there were times where there'd be a long delay or whatever, because you weren't in cell service, but it would get it. And it was quite easy to use.
Tim (18:42.372)
Yeah, tends to work. Technically it works well in the Alps because I think, you know, I guess they've got cell towers in the valleys, but also on the mountaintops in places. So you get a pretty, you're never going to be flying thousands of meters above the mountaintops. So you always, you tend to be in coverage where I've, whereas I've found in the UK, know, Zello just doesn't, doesn't work when you're doing the cross country flight because you're just above the cell coverage.
Gavin McClurg (19:00.389)
No.
Gavin McClurg (19:10.983)
Hmm Tim I have a lot of listeners call in who you know who aren't in the Alps don't live there and they're not and they start for them to imagine it's a little your first trip is a little overwhelming. It's just a lot of places you can start. There's a ton of sites and they're just everywhere in the Alps and but I have a lot of people ask you know I really like to go do something like you're doing every year like the gumbell gum ball. But if they you know for people that don't have.
any background in the Alps, what would be your kind of top three? Here's the things you need to know before going to do this.
Tim (19:55.387)
I mean, if they just want to pitch up on their own.
and just go for it. Well, I would say try and.
Well, I mean, the main thing that catches people out is the valley winds and storms. So, you know, be super wary of storms brewing up. can develop very quickly. But also, you know, try and. I mean, you can't you can't learn by memory every single valley winds in the Alps. It's impossible, but try and, you know, have an idea of some routes.
and have an idea of what the valley winds typically do in those, you know, along those routes. Speak to pilots, if people want to approach me, that's fine, I can help, but I'm, the Alps is a vast place. I've only, you know, traveled on a few sort of main routes really. So there's people with way more experience than...
than me, obviously. But yeah, I would.
Tim (21:11.011)
not be afraid to ask advice. I think that's basically it, whether it's on PG Forum or in just reaching out to people like myself.
Gavin McClurg (21:13.797)
Yeah. Yeah.
Gavin McClurg (21:24.71)
Yeah, you know, there's so many places to fly in the Alps and I think you can really, you can almost throw a dart at an area and go and rock up and like I said, talk to the locals and have a blast wherever you end up. It's more just weather, isn't it? But if it's bad, all you gotta do is wait. It'll get good, or go somewhere else.
Tim (21:51.997)
Yeah, wait, or just hop on a train or go somewhere else. That is the transportation links in the Alps are fantastic in that part of Europe. But I mean...
Gavin McClurg (21:55.737)
Yeah.
Gavin McClurg (22:00.538)
Yeah.
Tim (22:07.688)
You're have to cut this completely lost my train of thought. Yeah.
Gavin McClurg (22:12.133)
That's all right, we're good at that.
Back to the people who join and how they join and that kind of thing. What would you, if you ever looked at someone and you don't know them and they'd love to join your trip and you look at their X contest flights, is there kind of a bar that they have to meet? Well, what would you like to see that shows you, hey, you're probably ready for a journey like this?
Tim (22:44.075)
Yeah, I mean, think if they've some of the sort of competitions like the, used to be called the Gin Wide Open, I think it's something else now, or the Charber Open, you know, any of those sort of level and they've done 50k flights or 70k flights, that sort of thing. mean, in a competition environment, it's a little bit different because you don't really have to think for yourself. You just basically following other people.
Tim (23:15.731)
If you've certainly done those sort of distance flights on your own or just with some smaller group of mates, then yeah, I would look to see whether it's just in like the foothills of the Alps, you know, which would be a bit different to flying around, know, Mont Blanc massif, for example, or some of the bigger mountains. mean, essentially the bigger the mountains are, the stronger the valley winds.
I want to relevant experience really, but I mean, if someone really wants to come, we can't really stop them. They can rock up, in which case we'll say, well, look, just take it really steady, watch out here. We'll just give them as much advice as possible. But at end of the day, it is everyone for themselves.
Gavin McClurg (23:58.341)
Yeah
Gavin McClurg (24:09.052)
You said that you kind of break people down and you'd have almost a team leader and a group of fours or so pilots in a group. How do you decide those? Is that by experience?
Tim (24:18.028)
These are just safety groups so you wouldn't necessarily be flying together. We can be split up over 200 kilometres but we're still all checking with each other within that group. Ideally you just have one group with 20 people in but that gets quite difficult to manage and check up so if you've got smaller groups it's just easier for one person to able to keep track of everyone else.
Gavin McClurg (24:25.761)
okay.
Gavin McClurg (24:33.452)
Mm.
Gavin McClurg (24:46.279)
I see. Okay.
Tim (24:46.944)
So yeah, that's, but I mean, people naturally sort of find other people who fly at the same level. So yeah, these little pods would form naturally.
Gavin McClurg (25:01.704)
You mentioned that you've been hurt and some other people have managed to, you know, injure themselves. What's been the, has there been a common theme there? Is that top landing? Is that getting caught in wind? They've just been random? What, what has there been?
Tim (25:17.002)
Yeah, can... Personally for me it's been windy landings.
Someone else, a few years ago now, he landed in a particularly windy place and I can't remember the exact, I know roughly where it was, but I can't remember the exact scenario, but I think he had a collapse, sort of low level collapse and, you know, came in quite hard. He's fine, but I think he, did he?
he got some fractured vertebrae or not actually I can't remember the exact details of it another guy yeah just was coming to landing and he did yeah bad landing and one guy ended up in some trees so yeah a mixture for me personally it was the first the first year I was just
bit stupid. was crossing over from... I was heading along the valet or wallace near Fiche and I was trying to cross over onto the south side and I'd done exactly that move two years previously and didn't... I thought it's gonna work exactly the same and I failed to spot the signs of the the northerly coming over the Grimsle Pass so it was pretty windy on the south side. I arrived a bit lower
than where I'd arrived at two years ago. And all of a sudden I was in horrendous sink and really rotary air. I just had no choice but to dive down the valley, which is the valley that leads up to the Newfoundland Pass. And the wind was switching. And when I landed, I landed downwind pretty fast.
Tim (27:10.872)
Once I packed up and walking down the hill, the wind was blowing from the other direction and you know, it would have been fine. It was it was bizarre. yeah, nasty cut on my leg, but I was sort of walking wounded and made my way down to the the village at the bottom, hopped on a train and got myself checked out at a hospital. And then the the Grimzal Snack, Grimzal Snake struck. Yeah, I know. So, yeah, I'm very
Gavin McClurg (27:15.671)
Yeah.
Gavin McClurg (27:32.13)
The Grimmsle snake struck.
Yeah, she's a snarky little one.
Tim (27:40.003)
very wary of that now. And what was so stupid is that as I was crossing the valley there, had 10 minutes, I could have fired up the web browser, looked at winds.mobi and seen exactly what was going on there. And in fact, you could see that the cloud sort of spilling over, but I just, I was overconfident. thought, yeah, I made this move really successfully two years before and it's going to work exactly the same.
Gavin McClurg (28:02.41)
before.
Yeah, yeah.
Tim (28:06.511)
So yeah, that was a good lesson for me. So it just goes to show, every day is still a school day in some respects.
Gavin McClurg (28:14.786)
You mentioned WinsMobi, which I use as well. I use WindAlert, which just kind of captures them all in the same kind of thing. But what tech are you using for forecasting, for stuff in the air, radar? What are you using to both plan, but also on the fly?
Tim (28:33.989)
Yeah, so weather apps beforehand or on the morning or the day before, we're looking at windy, looking at meteor parapond, looking at soaring meteor, whichever one's giving the best forecast. Yeah, quite liking soaring meteor. They've got some new models and it's quite a nice...
Gavin McClurg (28:52.617)
Yeah.
Gavin McClurg (29:00.001)
Hmm.
Tim (29:03.119)
easy to use interface which gives you a lot of information in one go. Meteo Parapoint as well has a really nice easy to use interface. I find it overestimates the wind a bit. Don't know why that would be but you're always a bit wary of thinking it always overestimates because one day you'll get caught out like that.
Meteor blue as well has got some good graphics and animations. But yeah, so it's a sort of mixture.
Yeah, there's no one hard and fast app that I would use all the time. Whilst we're flying and checking, I mean, the main thing is wanting to check out winds. So in Switzerland, the Metier Swiss app is really good. It's got wind animations or wind spot readings from lots of different places in valleys and mountaintops. yeah, winds.mobi is the other one I use.
Gavin McClurg (29:59.777)
Yeah, that's fantastic.
Tim (30:16.052)
Windstop MOBYs, think coverage drops off in Italy, I seem to remember. Yeah, I remember when I was in the Dolomites this in August, there were virtually no wind stations as far as I could tell. Whereas in Switzerland and France, Windstop MOBY is pretty comprehensive.
I don't know what's...
Gavin McClurg (30:38.73)
Are you looking at live cams much?
Tim (30:44.367)
not when flying, but I have looked at them in the past, know, to... When was it? It would have been probably three years ago. I was stuck on Mont Noble, which is on the south side of the Sion Valley, just dead. In fact, just sort of above Sion, I think, more or less. I thought I'd glide over to the other side, onto the north side to get the thermals. But the cloud just...
I was ended up you know clagged in in cloud but I was checking the webcams in the valley and I could see that this cloud was just purely on the hilltops. The valley was completely clear so I made the decision right I'm just gonna I gotta lob off and fly straight out and get in the clear air and then yeah it worked perfectly.
Gavin McClurg (31:33.758)
Yeah, went down through the cloud and bang, I can see everything. That's always exciting.
Tim (31:36.756)
Yeah, glorious sunshine. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, I you know, I could see there's no nothing in front of me, no cables. It was just taken off in clear air. So I knew it was safe to do that.
Gavin McClurg (31:51.296)
I think I asked you this on the last one, any particular flight of all these gumballs just really stand out. You make these great kind of summary videos of your trips that people love, I love, they're amazing, they're really well done. But anything just really stand out, something you'd tell your little ones one day, this one flight.
Tim (32:18.304)
Yeah, I I've had a few, but in the gumballs specifically, there's one day I did just over 200K from San Andres, that ended up at...
Tim (32:36.821)
just at the landing field at Mont Lambert so that's just south of Albertville so that was a really cool flight I landed I don't know what time six seven o'clock something like that there were these French kids well not kids youths shall we say having a barbecue and a few beers and I landed they offered me some food and that was that was terrific
Another really good flight was from Verbier all the way to Bellinzona. That was a stunning flight. was... yeah, yeah, yeah. So that was amazing. think that at the time that was my longest flight in the Alps. That was spectacular going over the Newfoundland Pass and...
Gavin McClurg (33:11.593)
Hmm. I did that in the Xops going the other way in 2015 that exact that exact one. Yeah, cool
Gavin McClurg (33:25.129)
Yeah.
Tim (33:31.221)
What else? mean, every time you cross the, you you fly over the Grimsle Pass and the Thurka Pass, that's always just spectacular there.
Gavin McClurg (33:41.095)
Yeah, spectacular and a little bit butt puckering. You're always going, is it going to strike? it going to strike? But yeah, when it's good there, it's doesn't it? It's no, it can't be. It's just, it's incredible flying over that glacier and you're on the moon.
Tim (33:42.54)
But I mean...
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Tim (33:57.685)
Yeah, it's spectacular. This year when, well, I flew over it twice actually on two different trips, but the second trip with, there were just four of us in the group. So it wasn't, it was like a Gumball part two of a smaller, you know, was a, we felt this year, we felt a little bit cheated by the weather. had sort of, we actually had eight good days. Although on two of those days, we didn't really make any forward progress, but, and then the weather changed. So.
When I saw a little weather window in early August, I put the word out and anything fancy joining me? yeah, four of us, four of us all together. And yeah, we had a great flight over the Grimsle Pass and Furka Pass and firmly with an eagle just by that glacier at the, you know, just by the Furka Pass. was spectacular. But another really memorable flight was
was in 2023 and it was the gumball was over for me over prematurely. This was the gumball where we didn't have the best of weather, but I ended up landing on the south side of Mont Blanc and it was the wind had picked up you know quite a lot and I got dragged into some boulders when I landed and yeah, ended up gashing the same leg and that walking off
down through, down to Courmayeur and then got a bus to Aosta to the hospital where they looked after me fantastically. yeah, then I came home, three weeks, had my daughter's wedding and then a couple of weeks later I was out to the Alps again. I I spotted again a nice little weather window from St. André and I had an amazing flight from St. André up through the middle of the Ekrans and landed near
what was near Courcheval sort of area around there, the Three Valleys, and that was just epic flying through that landscape. Incredible.
Gavin McClurg (36:01.02)
Yeah. Yeah.
Gavin McClurg (36:06.974)
So pretty. The Akrons are incredible. When you hurt your leg, was that the Aosta? you at the west end of the Aosta? Were you on the south side of Mont Blanc?
Tim (36:10.284)
Yeah.
Tim (36:18.011)
No, I was... Yeah, just basically to the south east of Mont Blanc. It was... Yeah, you know, up until then it had been fantastic, beautiful. the plan... I was with two other guys to start with and the plan was to fly up towards Passy, but there were some big clouds there.
Gavin McClurg (36:29.156)
Use my block of hair.
Tim (36:45.965)
And I thought, the clouds to the east. Look, you know, we're starting from Montbizan, which is above the town of Beaufort. So just near Mont, Mont, Mont Sherry, Mont Sherry, think it is, you know, just to the southwest of the Mont Blanc Massif, really. And so I sort of did my own thing, headed, headed east, really around the south side of Mont Blanc, an area I didn't know at all. And it was a
Gavin McClurg (36:52.699)
Yeah? Yeah.
Gavin McClurg (37:05.717)
Yeah.
Tim (37:15.149)
It was a beautiful flight, it going fantastically until, and I was trying to get up to Verbier, around the south, but really cloud base wasn't high enough and I thought I'd be sheltered by Mont Blanc, by the massive itself, from the north westly wind, but instead the wind seemed to whistle around and accelerate through that valley, so I decided to land.
I know what, yeah, Cormier was the nearest town, that was about a seven or eight mile walk down there.
Gavin McClurg (37:47.192)
okay. So you were trying to get up and over from the south side, would that be like the St. Bernard pass into, there's that one tent or Sierras and then up to Vervier. I guess that's just to the east of the Massif, right? You're just, okay, okay, cool.
Tim (37:55.471)
Yeah.
Tim (37:59.941)
Yeah, that was... Yeah, that's what I was planning to do. And I should have... Maybe you could say it's a lack of preparation, but there was some airspace shown as a danger area. I think a firing range or something on Flysky High. Just sort of where I was, so I didn't want to go through it. I stick into the west of it. And it turns out that I don't think that...
that danger area is active most of the time. And in fact, it's right by the colder.
Gavin McClurg (38:31.357)
You didn't have to worry about.
Tim (38:39.964)
cold as San Bernard, I think it's just to the west of it, I think. And I think people fly through it all the time. I didn't know this, so was avoiding it. yeah, I had the height to sort of dive through that. I think that would have been a very sensible decision. But I kept on pushing, pushing north, as it were. And yeah, just got into a nasty place.
Gavin McClurg (38:45.426)
Yeah.
Gavin McClurg (39:03.101)
Then typically when you start in San Andres, is your line typically up to Saint Vincent, so you're flying the Dormeuse? Yeah, that's kind of a cool first day. I mean, if you had a lot of people at the gumball to show up and do that and go, phew, dude. mean, that's a pretty mind blowing flight.
Tim (39:13.498)
Yeah, yeah, seems to be that exactly.
Tim (39:23.303)
Yeah, blows their mind. We've had a few people. Yeah, I mean, not everyone makes it even even sort of regulars sometimes struggle. You know, we had some some people not get past the Cheval Blanc really that sort of area or land in the boonies just north of the Cheval Blanc. That's but you can you it's amazing, France. You know, these those guys, I think Solomon Hitch.
Tim (39:53.34)
and just did a bit of leapfrogging. Others hiked up and relaunched somewhere on the side of the dormaloo. yeah, there's plenty of options when you land. That's the thing about the Gumball. Because if you do land bomb early, you can either stick with it, just do your own thing, or you can just, it's not pure. You can just...
Gavin McClurg (40:07.516)
Mm.
Gavin McClurg (40:20.742)
Leave for hug. Yeah.
Tim (40:22.6)
put your thumb out, get a bus or whatever and just catch up and then regroup with some other people the next day. So yeah, it's worked well like that. Some people have been known to take a train pretty much all the way from like Dean all the way up to Chamonix I think in the past, but it's whatever works for you. Whatever works for you.
Gavin McClurg (40:37.062)
Yeah
Gavin McClurg (40:43.652)
Right. Yeah, sure. Why not? Right? Yeah, absolutely. We're still seeing some beautiful country. I love it. Would you ever? I don't know. Would you ever leapfrog right from the beginning and instead of starting in France, would you start? I don't know, Davos or something and go to Slovenia or do the pins gal route.
Tim (40:50.268)
Yeah, exactly.
Tim (41:07.582)
Yeah
Tim (41:11.392)
think we should do that sometime, just start somewhere else. It is tempting to fly some new areas. I sort of touched upon doing this little trip in August and that was a...
That was a real eye-opener for me. I started in Fiesch and I bought my return air ticket. I flew out to Geneva on the Thursday night while camping in Fiesch and then booked a return flight from Venice on Tuesday. So we had four flying days and so yeah, to get as far as possible towards Venice.
had some amazing flights and covered some real new ground for me and especially the Dolomites the last day was absolutely stunning. But yeah, it would be fun to start in Chamonix and see how far we can get east. I think the appeal for some people is to start, you know, who've got more time is obviously to start as far south as possible really and then make their way all the way to Slovenia like I was saying.
Raffle did that this year, slow time.
Tim (42:36.758)
Yeah, maybe we'll see what people fancy doing in 2025.
Gavin McClurg (42:42.584)
Yeah, right. Curious, well, before we started recording, you mentioned, you know, you're 60 now and, I'm 52 now. I definitely am finding myself thinking more about...
less durable than I certainly was when I was training for the X-Alps, but just in general, the vision's not as good, a little bit harder to get out of bed in the morning, a little more stiff. Definitely, I just start thinking about it more that I can't necessarily.
Tim (43:09.31)
Yeah, tell me about it.
Gavin McClurg (43:16.73)
You know the crash we had in 2021 in that race. I did a lot of crashing in that race and you know when you're training real hard you could kind of roll off a lot of that stuff, but I start thinking about that more. Yeah, I got less wombat these days exactly so just wondering how that factors into you know what you're doing and what your group is doing and how you I don't know. Is it something you guys even busy something you talk about? Is he something to think about?
Tim (43:27.008)
Yeah, your inner wombat is leaving you.
Tim (43:48.133)
I don't think it's anything we specifically think about, know, subconsciously, or maybe not even subconsciously. Consciously, think this year I was happy to maybe...
Take a little easier, not pushing it.
Tim (44:07.52)
I'm not, I don't know if I'm flying any different or I'm not, you know, as a group, I don't think we're doing any difference just because we're all getting older.
Tim (44:21.865)
I was probably the oldest but we had some youngsters there as well who had a great time too. I don't know, you just got to fly within your own limits. This year for me was great, actually it was a very sociable gumball for me. I way more time spent with other people than in previous years so I really enjoyed it.
Gavin McClurg (44:50.586)
Are you noticing your own personal flying goals? Have they shifted in the last couple years? actually, have they shifted because of the gumball? Are you finding less need to ex-contest out every flight and more just flying for the aesthetic?
Tim (45:13.969)
Yeah, I mean, I certainly not not chasing kilometres in in X contest or and I don't even do the UK National League anymore. I haven't done that for years. You know, who doesn't like doing nice long flights, obviously. But, you know, this year when I got to Chamonix flying from La Clusaz, it wasn't a huge long flight.
you know, up the Aravi and then across to Pasi. I got to Plampras, went down the valley a bit and I thought, do I push on on my own? And by that stage I knew the other guys. I'd been part of a group with them the night before and we all took off roughly together. You know, they were landing in Pasi and Chamonix. So I thought, no, this time I'm just going to...
Got top landed at Plan Prairs and we had, there was five of us, I think in the end, five or six of us camping up at Plan Prairs. And it was such a great evening and a really great morning the next day. So it was no, yeah, I didn't feel I missed out at all that day, you know, by not pushing on. And yeah, in terms of my own flying goals and things, yeah, I love the aesthetic flights and
Gavin McClurg (46:29.987)
Yeah.
Tim (46:39.185)
on that Feast to Feltra trip in August, which is where I ended up, just near Feltra. Yeah, the lines we took there were absolutely stunning. Not intentionally, it's just the way it worked out. And, you know, back at home, I'm not chasing every kilometer for sure. I love doing, you know, 100K flights or even more 200K flights, but I'm certainly not out every, you know, every available opportunity.
Gavin McClurg (46:52.248)
Yeah.
Tim (47:07.932)
And because I'm not doing the league, I'm much more relaxed. If I miss a good day, you know, there'll be another. Yeah.
Gavin McClurg (47:13.516)
as much. Yeah, interesting. Cool. You were saying before we started as well that you're not doing a ton of travel in the winter, you're not doing big long-haul flights. I assume you're not going down to Colombia or Brazil or that kind of thing. How do you bide your time with the winter blues and getting ready for the next season? Are making new ones?
Tim (47:35.484)
with the winter blues. Yeah. Re-watching my old videos or making editing videos from the summer. Yeah. I just do more, more, more local stuff on the, you know, a bit more cycling, a bit of paddle boarding on the, the river and canal. We just got a new puppy. So we'll be doing well. He's too young for long walks at the moment, but yeah, just, just
Gavin McClurg (47:44.226)
Yeah
Gavin McClurg (48:02.808)
training.
Tim (48:04.989)
My wife might even get me doing a bit of DIY. Who knows? Better edit that bit out in case she ever listens.
Gavin McClurg (48:08.312)
Hey
Gavin McClurg (48:14.017)
Some honeydew lists coming your way.
Tim (48:16.518)
Yeah, I'm in the world. World's best procrastinator when it comes to DIY.
Gavin McClurg (48:24.504)
But you were saying you were already thinking about dates for next year. So you guys most likely be in July.
Tim (48:32.574)
Yeah, I mean, when I first was thinking about the involved trips, I did a bit of analysis, you know, looking at number of flights in different areas of the Alps, you know, number of flights over 100 kilometres or the number of days in which there were flights of over 100 kilometres. you know, July seemed to be the most reliable. You're not getting the biggest flights, but you're getting the most days with with.
reliable weather but I think you know with what the weather's doing I think and especially last year that's it's less predictable for sure I think I think everyone agrees with that these days.
Gavin McClurg (49:12.491)
Yeah, sure, absolutely.
Yeah, definitely. Okay, well, I don't know too much more for you, but I'd love, I think everybody'd love to know what you're flying. What are you using, what are you using for gear on these trips?
Tim (49:28.116)
So I've got a Omega ULS.
Tim (49:34.802)
X Alps 5 I suppose it would have been called which I absolutely love. Yeah, two liner, D two liner. It's a very easy wing to fly despite being a D. So yeah, absolutely love that. Recently got a... So I haven't got a super light harness, I've got the Lightness 4 now which fits all the gear in. It's very comfortable so I like that a lot.
Tim (50:05.064)
That's my main, yeah, that's the flying gear. And then there's always all the volvive paraphernalia. Say again.
Gavin McClurg (50:06.839)
Yeah, yeah. And I know you're a FlySky High user. You're on that thread. I say, know you're a FlySky High user, so you just extra battery and a phone and.
Tim (50:18.625)
yeah, yeah, my flight deck's got an extra battery and so I carry two, you know, 10,000 milliamp batteries. I don't know why we say, you know, 10,000 milliamps. Why don't we just say 10 amp batteries. InReach, know, InReach Mini and yeah, XZ Tracer 2 Flarm is my vario.
Gavin McClurg (50:33.694)
Yeah.
Tim (50:46.316)
most of the time in the Alps, have to worry about charging it. Yeah, solar panel as well, anchor strapped onto the front of my pod.
Gavin McClurg (50:49.846)
Yeah.
Okay.
Gavin McClurg (50:56.374)
Okay.
Tim (50:58.464)
Yeah. Yeah.
Gavin McClurg (50:59.67)
Cool. And then are you carrying full sleeping bag, stove, pad, tent, and all that kind of stuff too? Yeah. Okay.
Tim (51:06.476)
Yeah, yeah, yeah, personally I use a quilt, yeah, yeah, again, you know, I don't spend, I try and spend as little as possible on this sort of stuff. So it's all, it's all fairly budget stuff except, well, the mattress is the Thermarest Neo Air, which I think is, well, it's the first model. So it's the noisy, rustly model, but it's very comfortable.
Gavin McClurg (51:10.802)
Okay, all right.
Gavin McClurg (51:31.081)
Yeah.
Nice and comfy, yeah, I have the same one.
Tim (51:35.222)
the tent and the quilter from AliExpress.
And they're fantastic. Great. Yeah, really good. I mean, you can spend hundreds of dollars, pounds on sort of lightweight gear, but you know, I don't intend to walk miles and miles and miles with the kit. as long as it all fits in and there's, the whole lot comes to about 20, 22 kilograms, something like that. And a bit more, you know, add a bit for water. just, I mean, food is quite a lot of the...
Gavin McClurg (51:42.422)
Cool.
Yeah, that's what I did.
Gavin McClurg (52:09.302)
That's heavy.
Tim (52:10.304)
the weight, the more days you cater for, significantly adds up significantly, mean, gets lighter as you go through it.
Gavin McClurg (52:18.334)
Yeah, sure, Tim, thanks very much man. As always, it's pleasure. It's good to see you. I really enjoyed getting your texts a couple nights ago and when I was flying the sailplane and wave, was really neat. Thanks for reaching out. That was fun.
Tim (52:34.357)
I enjoyed following that. was definitely a cool thing to follow along. It was terrific.
Gavin McClurg (52:43.541)
Yeah, flying at 256 knots was new.
Tim (52:48.471)
Yeah, well I was following in a website called puretrack.io which I recommend everyone check out. It's a fantastic sort of aggregator of all your different trackers. And yeah, I had it set to kilometers an hour so when it reached 440 kilometers an hour I thought, bloody hell, that's insane.
Gavin McClurg (52:55.317)
Yeah.
Gavin McClurg (53:00.553)
Okay.
Gavin McClurg (53:10.389)
Well, I didn't tell you so I was on the stick when you sent the text you say, you know, you got to 397. I was so hoping you'd get to 400. And so right then I asked Gordon, I hey, man, we got some people watching. They want us to get it for her. He goes, man, that would be easy. He just pointed the nose down a little bit. And then right then the wave started getting really strong then. And so we were we were going 250. We were over 250 for a while, but we hit 256 and we were screaming.
Tim (53:18.317)
Yeah, yeah.
Tim (53:26.543)
What is it? Yeah, yeah.
Gavin McClurg (53:40.504)
up. I mean we were going up and going that fast. It was just this is ridiculous.
Tim (53:43.663)
But yeah, so you're basically your nose down to get the speed to try and dive, but you're still going up.
Gavin McClurg (53:49.097)
Yeah, and we just stayed there. We just stayed pinned. I mean, I could tell he had, because I had my hand on the stick. At that point, he wanted the stick because we were going way too fast. We hit any turbulence or something. I mean, I could tell he had the thing pretty pinned down and and still just the very just. Holy shit, Really, really cool.
Tim (53:57.412)
Yeah, yeah.
Tim (54:08.847)
You could hear it on some of your videos. Yeah, great. And then landed in time for breakfast at the airfield, no doubt.
Gavin McClurg (54:18.625)
Exactly, yeah. I mean, by the time we'd packed away the plane, was dumping rain. I mean, we knew that this was coming. It got, came a little bit about an hour earlier than we were planning. So I mean, he knew way in advance it wasn't going to be kind of any record day, but yeah, I think he stretched it out really as far as we could. And it was,
Tim (54:25.218)
Yeah.
Yeah.
Tim (54:32.613)
Yeah.
How far south of Takeoff did you end up going? couldn't, I wasn't quite sure.
Gavin McClurg (54:40.272)
In distance, we got down to Mount Whitney, which is what we call the Whitney Portal. It was right beneath us. And we did a little jog down there. So we got all the way down there, came back, I don't know, I'm guessing 20 miles, 25 miles, and went back down again. Because we could see on SkySight that it was going to light up. We could see that the wave was going to get even stronger and better.
Tim (54:55.652)
Yeah, so, yeah.
Gavin McClurg (55:02.886)
And so he wanted to kind of pause a little bit down there before coming back, making sure we could. when we turned around to go north, you could just see our altitude over goal just.
It was at zero and it just went thousand, two thousand, three thousand, four thousand, five thousand, six eleven thousand. I mean, you could see we weren't going to have to make a single move, which we didn't. And we actually flew past it. We flew past goal and went north a little bit further. And then you could just see it was time that we had to get on the ground. And it was, I was impressed with how much wind they can land in. Luckily, it was coming in pretty straight on the airfield because if it would have been sideways, I'm sure he could have done it.
Tim (55:22.895)
Yeah, yeah.
Tim (55:33.019)
Yeah.
Gavin McClurg (55:44.278)
it would have been pretty exciting because it was 35 knots on the ground. It was cooking.
Tim (55:50.609)
What an adventure, yeah.
Gavin McClurg (55:52.582)
just such a different thing.
Tim (55:55.587)
Yeah, it's so... It's like worlds apart from what we do, you know, in the paragliders.
Gavin McClurg (56:01.588)
worlds apart. Yeah, it's aviation and then you kind of change, you stop right there. But it was, I would say, you know, I think he was just impressed with the knowledge. know, he could, we know what's going on. We just don't fly in those conditions, but you you could, it was really neat being above the wave. The night when we were on the night vision goggles, when we were.
you know, 20,000, 22,000, and it was dead black. You you could really see the harmonics of the wave and all these things that I've only ever seen from the ground, but you could, you know, we're above it.
Tim (56:38.718)
So there were wave bars, you could see the clouds were there, the lenticulars.
Gavin McClurg (56:43.535)
Exactly. you know, and it was neat because on the night vision goggles, you could see the lights underneath where there was a cloud and you could just see these rolls of, you know, the domes and the domes would stretch north and south and the clouds stretch north and then there'd be no cloud and then there'd be another row and then another and then no cloud and another row. And you could just kind of see how it all works. And you could see how he was.
Tim (56:52.094)
Bye.
Gavin McClurg (57:08.613)
was, you he would say, okay, well, we're going to go through some period here, we're going to get washed and then, but we'll, right about now. And then we're going to hit it again. And then, you know, 10 seconds later, the very start ripping again. And you could just kind of see how you maneuver around in that kind of thing.
Tim (57:25.716)
So you never got any of the sort of the down draw from the wave bars? you did?
Gavin McClurg (57:29.437)
yeah, yeah, we got really washed heading south, you know, because heading south was quite a bit harder. We had quite a bit of wind on the nose and so that's where I was telling you we got down to, we were actually going backwards at one point. But we went quite deep into the terrain and hoping to kind of move over to another
kind of segment a wave and to our west and didn't get it. And we got down pretty low. think we were down, I mean, it's not low by our standards, but we were kind of more in the train. was kind of 13, 14,000, which at that level in the Sierras, you're not that far above the peaks. And then it was rowdy. was definitely, but you could see it. And at that point he was really looking more for rotor cloud below us. the wave stuff,
was above us and we were just starting to get lenticulars at that point. There wasn't much moisture. Early on it was much more blue and as the day got more and more, as this system pushed in, we got a lot more moisture and you could really see everything very well. But what saved us really was, you know, just off to our right there was these little bits of cloud and you can see them kind of, they didn't look like normal clouds. They were kind of rolly and he said, okay, there it is and he just banged over to it and it was very rough but
Then we started going up again. And it's when you're in the rotor, it's terrible. But as soon as you get in the wave, it's just, you could take a nap. It's just smooth like butter. There's no jumping around or jerking around. It's just super smooth. It's like being in a commercial jetliner. It went smooth.
Tim (59:01.924)
Yeah.
Tim (59:11.348)
I've never flown in wave myself, but I know there's up in the Peak District, which is sort of near Sheffield, near the city of Sheffield in sort of Northern England. There's you do get in winter, you get wave there off above a site called Lord's Seat, I think it's called, or around that sort of area. And yeah, people have had.
Amazing smooth climbs up to three and a half, four thousand feet in winter. It just looks spectacular. I've never, yeah, never been in the right place at the right time.
Gavin McClurg (59:45.81)
Mmm.
Gavin McClurg (59:50.002)
Yeah, I was blown away. didn't, I don't know what I anticipated, but everything that I anticipated was different than it actually was. I, you know, I, the night vision goggles, especially, I really can't believe what you can see with those things. It's just incredible. You see everything. I mean, not the same way, of course, but you know, for example, we could see the sun coming up an hour and a half before we could see the sun coming up. You know what I mean? There was,
Tim (01:00:11.764)
Mmm.
Tim (01:00:18.514)
Yes, like if you take a picture of the Aurora with your phone, it just sees so much more, I guess.
Gavin McClurg (01:00:19.794)
Just
Gavin McClurg (01:00:23.33)
Yeah, and you could, you know, it's looking east about four o'clock in the morning. It's winter here. I mean, the sun doesn't come up until seven thirty, eight o'clock. And so with the time change and so, you know, but at four o'clock, four thirty, you could see it starting to get light in the east and you go, there's the sun coming out. And you take off your night vision goggles and it was dead black. There was there was not nothing coming up. But in the night vision goggles, there was.
Tim (01:00:42.399)
Mm, that's pitched up. Yeah, yeah.
Tim (01:00:50.038)
Yeah.
Gavin McClurg (01:00:51.075)
Yeah, it was really, really quite cool. I mean, taking off from a totally black runway, you know, and you can see it all.
Tim (01:00:53.291)
Yeah.
Tim (01:00:57.707)
Yeah, it's very exciting. But I mean, it's not it's not the same as flying cross country across the mountains and battling with rowdy thermals and, you know, feeling just, you on a paraglider, you're just immersed in your environment, aren't you?
Gavin McClurg (01:01:05.997)
No.
Gavin McClurg (01:01:13.807)
You really are. Yeah, I was impressed that you have more of feeling than I thought we would. And I think that's because of the wave and everything. I mean, I think the standard glider flying would be less immersive than this was for sure. But yeah, you're right. mean, that's why he's so keen on perrylight. He loves what we do because it's it's aviation, but it's very different. You you're not feeling it in the same way.
Tim (01:01:40.245)
Yeah, yeah.
Gavin McClurg (01:01:45.041)
It's It's neat going 300 miles an hour.
Tim (01:01:46.071)
Yeah, great experience. Say yeah. Mad, yeah.
Gavin McClurg (01:01:53.349)
Well cool bud. Well hey, thank you very much. As always, appreciate your time. Thanks for saying hello and flying the sailplane. Yeah, and good luck with the future gumballs. I'd like to join you on one of these. They look like just a hoot.
Tim (01:01:59.189)
No, lovely to chat to you again, Gavin.
