Latvian APPI instructor, XC hound, comp organizer, acro aficionado, and former BGD test pilot Karlis Jaunpetrovics discovered flying in Taiwan of all places in 2012. After the bug bit hard Karlis moved heavily into acro flying in Nepal which eventually brought him to the doorstep of BGD in France where he became a test pilot for a few years. Karlis mentored SIV instruction under the boys at Flyeo (Malin and Fabien) and now has his own instruction company founded on progression called “Flying Karlis“. In this episode we talk about his journey to becoming an instructor, the challenges and intricacies of test piloting, his passion for acrobatics, his experiences flying in Taiwan, and the vibrant paragliding community he has encountered along the way. Karlis shares his passion for cross-country flying and the importance of mentorship in paragliding. He discusses the significance of finding the right instructor and community, as well as his transition into teaching SIV training, the 4 fundamentals of SIV, and how progression works when it works well. Additionally, we touch on the complexities of weather prediction in paragliding, highlighting the blend of art and science in understanding micro-meteorology. Karlis shares his journey in organizing local paragliding events, emphasizing the importance of teamwork and mentorship. He discusses the critical role of safety in competitions, including the implementation of strict safety regulations and communication protocols. The conversation also touches on the challenges faced during his X-Alps adventure supporting Theo De Blic, highlighting the camaraderie and respect developed among pilots in extreme conditions.
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Karlis moved to southern France in 2016 and has been a test pilot for BGD. The interview process for becoming a test pilot was extensive and involved flying. Test piloting requires a unique skill set that is not taught in schools. Karlis found it challenging to suppress his instinct to control the wing during tests. Flying in Taiwan offered a friendly community and unique challenges. The paragliding community in Taiwan has grown significantly since Karlis’s time there. Karlis transitioned from acrobatics to cross-country flying for more variety. The repetitive nature of test piloting led Karlis to seek new challenges. Landing in beetle nut plantations poses serious risks in Taiwan. Karlis’s journey reflects the evolution of his passion for flying. Cross-country flying is about connecting mountain ranges. Mentorship is crucial for growth in paragliding. Finding the right instructor can enhance learning. Repetition and practice are essential in paragliding. Pre-course knowledge significantly improves training outcomes. Visualization techniques can aid in skill acquisition. Situational awareness is vital for safety in flying. Micro-meteorology plays a key role in weather prediction. Community involvement can help introverted pilots find mentors. Understanding the fundamentals is critical for advanced maneuvers. Organizing events requires a strong team and mentorship. Safety regulations in competitions are crucial for pilot protection. Communication protocols can significantly enhance safety during events. Grounding a pilot is sometimes necessary for safety reasons. Radio checks are essential for ensuring effective communication. Pilots must take responsibility for their own safety in competitions. The X-Alps presents unique challenges that test pilots’ limits. Camaraderie among pilots can grow through shared experiences in competitions. Understanding local conditions is vital for safe flying. The importance of clear communication cannot be overstated in paragliding.
Sound Bites
“I want to fly and I worked in offices before.” “It’s surreal to be here after all these years.” “The flying itself, it’s an island.” “The process of it is very repetitive.” “It’s just to try to do as big of a distance.” “The knowledge gap is huge.” “A good mentor is incredibly necessary.” “Join as many groups as you can.” “Repetition is the key in this sport.” “Visualization works amazing for that.” “Situational awareness is 95% mental game.” “Micro-meteorology is where it becomes an art.” “It’s incredibly complicated to fly.” “Without the team, it’s impossible.” “Radio checks took less than 15 minutes.” “The real importance of radio is safety.” “There’s only two options, really, right?”
Chapters
00:00 Introduction to Karlis and His Journey 03:02 Becoming a Test Pilot for BGD 05:53 The Art of Test Piloting 09:00 Transitioning from Acro to Test Piloting 11:51 Early Experiences in Paragliding 15:03 Flying in Taiwan: Community and Challenges 17:54 Life as a Test Pilot: Risks and Realities 21:03 The End of the Test Pilot Era 24:00 Reflections on Cross-Country Flying 26:12 The Importance of Mentorship in Paragliding 30:04 Finding the Right Instructor and Community 31:04 Transitioning to Instruction and SIV Training 36:10 The Flyeo Approach to SIV Training 46:06 Key Principles of SIV Training 55:12 Weather Prediction: Art vs. Science 58:59 The Birth of Local Events 01:01:34 Safety in Competition 01:02:31 Grounding Pilots: A Safety Perspective 01:10:36 Communication Protocols in Paragliding 01:19:00 Reflections on the X-Alps Adventure
Gavin McClurg (00:30.936)
Carlos, thanks for coming on the mayhem. I was excited to get an email from our mutual friend, Jock. I understand he's maybe worked with you on the comps you're running out there in southern France. And he gave me some questions to ask you. And then that took me on a deep dive into some of your background as a test pilot for BGD and your courses and your SIV. So yeah, we've got a lot to talk about. I thought the place we'd start is
I'd like to try to say your last name. Jean Petrovics? Is that right? Not really.
Gavin McClurg (01:11.946)
Jan Petrovic, you're from Latvia? Okay.
Karlis (01:13.597)
Yeah, in Latvia the J is pronounced as J instead of J.
Gavin McClurg (01:20.8)
Okay, gotcha, gotcha. And you're in a nice part of the world. You're down near La Ragna, in southern France,
Karlis (02:46.38)
Yeah, so I've been in south of France since 2016 and I've moved here near Lorraine-Montaglin, which I'm in a small town, Cerre, in 2018 and I've been here as a home base since then.
Gavin McClurg (03:02.894)
understand you kind of took off from Latvia in 2009 or around then. How did you land? You weren't a pilot then, that came later, but how did you, you were traveling the world, how did you land in that part of France after seeing so many different places?
Karlis (03:19.337)
Yeah, it was really, I came here first for the job interview with BGD. They flew me out to South of France, Gourliere or it's just near Gordon takeoff where the competition sometimes happen. And it was a two week long job interview. It's the longest job interview I've ever had. Yeah, it's two weeks.
Gavin McClurg (03:25.644)
Mm.
Gavin McClurg (03:40.152)
Really? Wow. And Girolier, that's Ozone's base too, right? Don't the two of them operate in the same spot?
Karlis (03:49.642)
Yeah, yeah, it's the same. Gourlir is actually where the XC Mag used to be based out. I mixed up the towns. They are in Maganiosk, which is more on the main road towards Nice. Just next to Grasse, really. Grasse is the easiest town to... Yeah, it's the same place where Roson is. Bruce actually...
created Ozone back in the day, he was one of the co-founders, so it's the same location. they flew me out, the plan was to see if I would be a good fit for the team and to make a commercial for the Epic, BGD Epic that is now quite well known in especially in acro community. That's how I ended up in France, to be a test pilot for BGD.
Gavin McClurg (04:16.204)
Yep.
Gavin McClurg (04:44.824)
So what do they do for two weeks? I'd love to find out how you, what does the interview look like to become a test pilot? Just fly all the time or?
Karlis (04:50.261)
Yeah.
Well, so yeah, so back then BGD was a small company. So everybody did multiple jobs. Literally in office, was Bruce Arna and Anthony Green. And I joined that team. was only three people in the French office and a few more in Austria. so the original plan was that I would do sales, sales manager for them, for the international market, for the Eastern Europe and Asia mostly.
and do test piloting. So sales in the morning and test pilot in the afternoon. yeah, really, I mean, the sales part, they wanted to see if I'm able to do that. And for test piloting part, it's flying together and seeing if fit and then if I would be a fit for the team, as it was very small company at the time. And then the flying style, if it matches as well.
because all the rest of the actual skills of how to be a test pilot, there is no schools for that. So the company has to teach you anyway. Anybody who comes from free flying community and wants to be a test pilot, even if you go through the certification center, like Air Turquoise does a course, that course is four to five days or so and you're not going to become a test pilot. You'll be more informed, but then it takes.
Gavin McClurg (06:22.506)
Yeah, just understand what the testing is.
Karlis (06:23.295)
A lot of time to learn. Yeah, the actual flying bit of testing is, it's an art in itself. It's like the acro reversed. You collapse things and you do nothing. You follow it. And that's a really difficult thing to learn because we, you know, throughout our career, throughout our flights, all we do is to control actively the wing and keep it open. And you have to suppress that and only act when needed if, you know, the...
wing is the prototype. If it's not good enough to reopen by itself, then you have to act. I was all acro at the time and just came from somewhere in Organia and it was really, really difficult not to do something. So that was really the most difficult part for me to learn was just let it go and go with it and don't wait shift or...
For me it was really difficult to do proper tests because the tests are defined, you have exactly what you need to do and it's all filmed so it's very easy to check if you've done it right or wrong. But it's really hard to execute the same test over and over again exactly as prescribed by the certification.
Gavin McClurg (07:41.666)
And does that stay, you'll have to forgive me, because I don't know a ton about the air turquoise and certification process, but does that stay static through the different ranges of gliders? I mean, are you still expected to do nothing when you're on a CCC glider as well?
Karlis (07:58.86)
Yeah, pretty much. mean, the difference between A, B, C, D classes is the time angle of reopening, sort of in a nutshell. It's a bit more complicated than that. So for ENA, asymmetric collapse is supposed to open at certain turn radius, not radius, but degrees, and a certain pitch forward, or so on and so forth. And for the higher
Gavin McClurg (08:00.098)
Really?
Karlis (08:28.617)
Certification classes, it's a longer time and more, you know, they can turn more, they can dive more. And yeah, they are still supposed to reopen by themselves for most things. And then some maneuvers is if you had to have pilot action, then by default goes to certain class.
Gavin McClurg (08:49.738)
Is it, being a test pilot, it introduce quite a bit more personal risk to your life?
Karlis (09:00.379)
No, I think, well, in recent memory and to my knowledge there hasn't been no lethal accidents for test pilots or serious injuries. There's been some injuries. Alan Zeller had a serious injury testing some high CCC wings. But I mean, in Godon, between the BGD at the time, were three.
I was on was about five or six. There was nothing in the two year span that I spent with them. Not nothing for us and nothing for them as far as I know. It's, you know that you're going to do them. So it's the same as an acro, altitude box. You know, you, you don't just go crazy when you, yeah, you, you have your margins, you have your reserves, of course. And I don't.
Gavin McClurg (09:45.752)
Yeah, margin.
Karlis (09:55.788)
And the wings, the prototypes themselves, we test them on the ground. Ground handling is a good way to check your wing. it's on the ground, you're already going to see how the wing behaves in the air. There's a lot of indication and you never take a prototype and just take off. You do your due diligence before that, so make sure it flies in the first place and then you do your flying bits. No, I never felt that it would be dangerous or that I...
Gavin McClurg (10:02.764)
Yeah.
Karlis (10:26.027)
I've done mostly because of stupidity, crazier things in acro, pushing it too soon, too far when I was a young pilot. I didn't have the same experience with testing.
Gavin McClurg (10:39.81)
Let's rewind that before your time with BGD, your passion was acro, I gather. When did you first get into it? Where did you get into it? Bring us up to the BGD stuff.
Karlis (10:54.592)
Yeah, so my traveling around as an early 20s, I ended up in Taiwan. I was teaching English there and moved in with a guy, Tim, a friend of mine still till this day, and he had the backpack. So we start talking about that backpack is and he told me, it's a small airplane. I'm like, yeah, yeah. I never heard of paragliding before that. yeah, I mean, I've seen
Gavin McClurg (11:19.672)
Really? Wow.
Karlis (11:23.893)
people flying with engines, but I thought it's parachuting with some motor or something like that. I had no clue what paragliding is. Yeah, so he introduced me to his instructor that taught him back in Taiwan. So I learned and I was hooked as we all tend to be after our first flights. I used to teach the English
Gavin McClurg (11:31.448)
Yeah.
Karlis (11:51.18)
five days a week and I went down to two days a week and the rest of the days I was flying as much as possible or ground handling the first year. Before going to Taiwan, I visited Nepal and India. I spent a year there and so I reached out to some people in Pokhara, Nepal, back in the day. This is around May 2012. It was the golden era of
commercial tandem flying for Westerners in poker back then. So I reached out to some companies and see if I can drive the van or do whatever to progress in paragliding. And one company answered and I ended up in poker. Long story short, I did three seasons of commercial tandem flying in poker while learning acrobatics. Because when you start paragliding, especially back then,
When you googled it, the fun stuff for late 20s, the most cool thing that you could see is acrobatics. Cross-country looked boring. It was not interesting one bit. I just sit in the saddle for hours. I didn't know any better back then. So acro it was. And the commercial tandems was just a way to pay for it all. So I don't actually can fly as much as I can. And in Polcar we did quite a bit of acro tandem as well.
Gavin McClurg (12:57.806)
Yeah. Yeah.
Karlis (13:16.811)
when the passengers were up for it. So we would do five flights on tandem and then do two flights on acro after that, day in, day out. My first months of flying tandems was 25 days, five flights a day, every single day. That was my first commercial season. was the wild, east back then. It was a beautiful learning place. There was a lot of people.
Gavin McClurg (13:36.324)
Wow! Jeez!
Karlis (13:47.254)
Quite a few of them have gone to X-Alps now, the people who've been there in Pokhara and we all were young and just learning and spending our winters there to extend the season. Back in Taiwan, I started doing some teaching, beginner teaching, and I reached out to multiple companies for dealerships and things like that to sell some gear.
Gavin McClurg (13:55.554)
Yeah.
Karlis (14:15.819)
And so I worked with BGD as their dealer in Taiwan for a couple of years. And eventually the company was growing and they needed more people and they were looking for people and they liked my communication with them through the emails. And that's how I got the interview to BGD. And they offered me a job first and I said, no, thank you. I'm not interested. I would like to be a test pilot.
because I want to fly and I worked in offices before and it's not my cup of tea and so they met me halfway or what's the expression and so I flew out and rest is history I've stayed in France.
Gavin McClurg (14:55.544)
Yeah.
Karlis (15:03.531)
Two years with them.
Gavin McClurg (15:03.87)
And at this point, were you flying much XC or mostly still just acro?
Karlis (15:08.683)
Yeah, none at all. My longest flight was I think 83 kilometers in Taiwan, cross-country. Most of them were 50 maybe maximum or less. So it was like I did a bit of trying it out and I started to like it quite a lot because it's quite a bit of a challenge as you well know. It's not an easy thing to do and especially in the...
2012, 13, 14, there wasn't as much information out there. Actually, to that point, I listened about 10 podcasts of yours, the first ones in a row, all of them, because it was the only place at the time to find information that the source was pre-checked. you did your work, found the people and so...
sort of you were the guarantee that the person that I listened to actually knows what they're talking about because back then it was I was new to this all I didn't know anybody in the sport and the only options I really had was paragliding forum and there it was really hard to figure out you know there was a lot of yeah it's controversies and you don't know who's talking so the cloud-based mayhem was one of the first sources online sources to my knowledge at the time
Gavin McClurg (16:19.042)
Yeah, as it still is.
Gavin McClurg (16:30.911)
That's cool to hear.
Karlis (16:33.135)
it's surreal to be here after all these years to be part of it. I've been flying for now 13-14, it was early in my flying career before I... and nowadays we're lucky we have a lot more of it. YouTube's are getting better and...
Gavin McClurg (16:36.546)
Yeah, that's been quite a while. That's 10 years.
Gavin McClurg (16:47.79)
There you go.
Gavin McClurg (16:55.288)
Yeah, there's a lot of outlets doing a lot of really good things, for sure. even the, I used to say.
Even from a magazine, it's hard to get long form answers. I mean, they're articles. It's hard to get. Bruce has been writing for XC Magazine for a long time, and they're so great. it's hard to get. You always want to go, I want to talk to Bruce. I want more. want more. But now they're doing their master's class. the media sphere. When somebody told me I should do a podcast, I didn't even know what a podcast was. just went, what?
So the media sphere has really expanded and there's lots of lots of people like yourself with your YouTube channel. It's It's great that we have so many different ways to get information out there. What's the flying like in in Taiwan? I what how big is the community?
Karlis (17:49.516)
At the time there was about 200 active pilots on the island, local. Some tandem operations in schools. Very friendly community. To me personally it's been nothing but amazing community of local pilots. The flying itself, it's an island. It's about 400 kilometers north to south and 200 east to west.
Gavin McClurg (17:54.635)
wow.
Karlis (18:19.171)
the size of it. It's a teardrop shape. Middle of it is mountains up to 4 000 meters which is quite surprising. They even get some snow.
Gavin McClurg (18:26.35)
Whoa, yeah, I had no idea it was that high. Really? Wow. Because you're quite close to the equator. Yeah? Yeah.
Karlis (18:32.297)
very rarely but yeah.
Yeah, it's not too far off, you get the snow only at the mountains, of course, not at the sea level. And because it's subtropical, it's all thick forests and humid air, so cloud base is quite low usually, and it's hard to get any longer distance. But I've been following Taiwan ever since, of course, and people have done now 100
Gavin McClurg (18:43.628)
Sure, sure, Huh.
Karlis (19:05.323)
120 I think straight land flights on the East Coast, which was not the case when I was there. I think national record was like 80 kilometers or 90. So now, boys are we're pushing the limits a bit. mean, there's not much because there's not much distance left that you can do straight.
Gavin McClurg (19:15.5)
Wow, they're pushing it a bit. Yeah.
Gavin McClurg (19:23.36)
OK, so you can't fly the length of the island.
Karlis (19:26.475)
Yeah, because the south and north is windy. It's Venturi. The island creates a Venturi as the ocean winds comes around and so that gets too much for us and so you can limit it to this more or less middle of it. You can of course fly north and south on specific days and the mountain range is all it's like a dinosaur's back. It goes down at the both sides all sides of the island and the center is really high. So it's
Gavin McClurg (19:30.414)
Bye.
Gavin McClurg (19:33.782)
Okay. Yeah.
Gavin McClurg (19:48.492)
Yeah.
Karlis (19:56.108)
For big distances it's tricky, for this time of the year from about November to late February it's really nice, smooth flying, quite reliable on the West Italy coast. It's an amazing culture, it's a place worth visiting, flying there. It's not grand for big distances, but it's nice.
Gavin McClurg (20:17.442)
Yeah, you were saying it's quite forgiving, quite in some ways gentle. The trees are nice and good for tree landings.
Karlis (20:22.833)
Yeah, I've tested the trees early in my flying. Yeah, I sank into one and it's a long walk out and rescue there. mean, helis are hard to get by. It's mostly military, so rescue, self rescue or hiking out. But yeah, it's very forgiving if you're going to end up in trees. The most dangerous thing is if you land in a beetle nut plantations.
It's the chewing thing that they do. It's like a chewing... Yeah, that destroys everything in your mouth and teeth and all that. But it's more valuable than gold there. so they have bear traps and people come with guns and it's serious. So if you land there, it's better not to move around because they have actual traps.
Gavin McClurg (20:51.618)
Huh, the chewing thing, the red nut. I didn't know that was a thing in Taiwan. Yeah, yeah.
Gavin McClurg (21:03.992)
Whoa.
Gavin McClurg (21:14.382)
That's, I mean, I always associate betel nut with cocaine producing countries, you know, that's usually kind of goes hand in hand. Like bus drivers will always chew on the betel nut with the coca leaves cause it keeps them awake, you know, so they can go drive 18 hours straight in places like Bolivia and that kind of thing. Is it, is it similar in Taiwan? they using it the same way or?
Karlis (21:35.051)
Not that I know of, because mean the beadle nut is fully legal and it's sold everywhere in the country.
Gavin McClurg (21:41.548)
Yeah, I think the beetle nut does not, I don't think that has any cocaine properties. It's more that they would wrap it. I might have this wrong. I know that it's used with the coca leaf.
Karlis (21:46.644)
No.
Karlis (21:53.514)
Yeah, they wrap it with leaves in Taiwan as well, but not cocoa leaves, some leaves. Well, in Taiwan, drug trafficking is capital punishment. that's a lot more strict. But betel nut, yeah, that's just for the nut itself. Apparently, it's very addictive. So yeah, they...
Gavin McClurg (21:56.907)
Okay. Okay.
Gavin McClurg (22:03.17)
Sure. Yeah.
Gavin McClurg (22:11.8)
more valuable than gold. Right. Yeah. Yeah.
Karlis (22:18.511)
protective of those but it's easy to see the skinny single trees and kind of it doesn't look like forests so yeah those are the ones you want to
Gavin McClurg (22:25.216)
Okay, stay away from those areas. These are all good things to know.
Karlis (22:30.044)
But other than that, Taiwan is incredibly safe and incredibly friendly. It's an amazing place. I spent there five years. It's my home in Asia.
Gavin McClurg (22:39.51)
Right, wow, cool. I have to go try it out. I think you're the first person I've spoken to that, I mean, others have flown in Taiwan and we just didn't touch on the subject, but I don't know anything about the flying in Taiwan. That's cool. I'm intrigued.
Karlis (22:54.644)
Yeah, it's an interesting place to explore.
Gavin McClurg (22:58.03)
Cool. Okay, so then you go to BGD and you spent some time being a test pilot. Why did that end? What did you decide? Did you decide to do something else?
Karlis (23:11.647)
For me, this is something that doesn't sound like it when you're a test pilot, but a lot of the work is in office. And the flying is... We still flew three, four days a week, would go out and test. But it's very... The process of it is very repetitive. And I like challenges that is...
Gavin McClurg (23:20.982)
Okay.
Karlis (23:39.868)
add something like cross-country. It's never the same. Even though if you fly the same site, it's never going to be the same flight. This is also why I stopped acrobatics seriously, because it's the same repetition. Every day is the same. For cross-country, you never get to the same days.
Gavin McClurg (23:54.796)
Yeah. Yeah.
Karlis (24:00.913)
And that's what I really love about cross-country and why I switched into cross-country flying and more than competitions or anything else as a pilot to fly. It's just to try to do as big of a distance as the day allows and connect different mountain ranges. That's what I love the most about paragliding and being a test pilot doesn't offer that. And this is why I decided to part ways and go do my own thing. We still cooperate and...
and we're gonna run the BGD waitlist together and all. The single biggest mentor I've had is Bruce Goldsmith. About 80 % I know about this. I couldn't believe my luck on that one.
Gavin McClurg (24:39.416)
What a mentor.
Gavin McClurg (24:44.846)
Yeah, that's the gold at the end of the rainbow.
Karlis (24:51.078)
It was surreal to land in the East Airport and have him pick you up. That was my fourth year into flying. I was brand new pilot. I was very shapeable when I arrived. was all ears and million questions.
Gavin McClurg (25:05.802)
Yeah, that's nice too, isn't it? Yeah, well must have been doing something right, Karmic Leaf. That's good place to land.
Karlis (25:13.546)
Yeah.
Yeah, I learned more than I thought is possible and I had no idea what I don't know. This is also, as you mentioned about Bruce before, that he's written a lot of articles and when I was with them, I pushed for the Bruce Tube that Bruce made me, the BGDB did about four or five episodes at the time because it's the knowledge that...
Gavin McClurg (25:24.94)
Yeah.
Karlis (25:44.926)
single biggest thing that I took from my experience, my time with them is that the knowledge gap between guys like Bruce Goldsmiths, who's been in the sport from the beginning, designing, testing and taking part in every aspect of it and the rest of the community, there's a big gap and it's guys like you are doing an amazing job making the gap smaller.
Bruce is really good at what he does and he doesn't have time to go and teach and things like that. And it's the same case. I'm talking about Bruce because I know him, but it's the same for all the rest of the people who are involved in the industry. I was shocked how huge the differences and how little these things are talked about. So that's what...
Gavin McClurg (26:17.294)
Sure. Yeah.
Gavin McClurg (26:23.978)
All of them, yeah. All the legends.
Karlis (26:39.358)
eventually inspired my own YouTube channel to pass on, start doing something towards that. A good mentor is, I think this sport more than maybe any others, it's incredibly necessary. I bet it's the same for you, right? To get where you've gotten so fast in paragliding, it wasn't without mentors.
Gavin McClurg (27:06.21)
It was 100%. I mean, I think the other chunk of that, and it sounds like this was you, okay, I'm going Denise. I think you, it's two things. It's mentors and it's being in the right place. And I think they really go together. For me, it was after years of sailing and I really wanted to get into flying, it was.
happening to meet Nick Greece and asking him where I should live. He said, well, there's three places in the US that you should live if you want to fly big lines. I think no matter where I would have moved, ended up choosing Sun Valley, but there were really good pilots in all three places. They went hand in hand, but it sounds similar to you that you decided, okay, well, I'm to go to Nice and.
based myself in a place that's one of the best places to get hours in the world, really. I mean, you can fly almost every day.
Karlis (28:03.424)
Yeah.
Karlis (28:07.999)
Yeah, well, that's why Ozone and BGD is testing there. It's one of the most reliable places in world to for airtime.
Gavin McClurg (28:11.051)
Exactly.
Yeah, I'm in one of the least reliable places, but there's good pilots here. When it's good, it's amazing. But the mentor thing was just enormous for me. That's actually a question I get a lot. So I'll ask you that. I think it's easier for people who are extroverts and quite gregarious. I've had Cedar Wright on the show. you tell you, he's a pilot who's gotten really good.
incredibly aggressive at getting mentors. Some people can do that because of their personality, but often people are not. They're either introverted or they're shy. What would you suggest in terms for how do you suggest to your students to find mentors? Because it really is a very important piece of the game.
Karlis (29:06.517)
Yeah, in that case, it's join as many groups organized, know, cross-country clinics, SIVs, or any kind of organized thing, because then you're part of the group and you're, you know, and, and as what I suggest especially is that try as many different instructors as you can to find a match. we, paragliding has a lot of different philosophies how to do the same thing.
And a lot of times, multiple philosophies are correct. We don't really have one right way how to do things. And then finding the one that matches with your personality and how you want to do things. And it's trial and error. And groups, I think any kind of organized groups would help because then for an introvert person, then you're not alone and you're part of it. It's easier, it might be easier. And...
These days, this podcast, YouTube is full of information. Even courses are coming out online things that you can subscribe for something.
Yeah, and then maybe through the same courses you'll find a mentor there, an instructor or build a community of pilots around you like-minded from... That would be the way to... I just went to travel, went, looked, bought a beer to a guy and talked to him. I'm extrovert, so for me that's how I do about things and just go talk to them. If that's not an option, then...
Join the course, multiple, and no one course is enough. It doesn't matter how good the instructor is, you have to do like repetition is the key in this sport and currency is the king. And without currency, yeah.
Gavin McClurg (31:04.46)
No. Yeah.
Gavin McClurg (31:09.422)
you're reducing your margin. So you leave BGD and was it kind of on your mind already to get into instructing and SIV or is that when you went to fly Yoda be an understudy with those guys?
Karlis (31:23.911)
Yeah, SIV is actually never wasn't my radar. was, yeah, I've never thought about, I mean, I've helped some friends of mine and we, you know, I've done some because I've done enough of acrobatics and test welding. So I had a good understanding of it, but it was my repeating clients for cross country clinics that I did today wanted to learn SIV from the same way I taught my progression courses. And so
Eventually I agreed to go out and try. So I did do my research. A good friend of mine is Theo de Blik, so I spent a lot of time with him in Ixalps. I was supporting him in 21. So we did a lot of walking and a lot of talking. So I picked his brain on, know, sieves and all that. But once I started teaching, I quite quickly realized that the way I was teaching, it was limited.
that it should be possible to do it better. Because even though I did my best to take it progressively and individually, but the structure wasn't good enough to keep everybody out of the water. Everybody was safe, but people were getting in the water where I thought that that shouldn't have happened. I've missed something in a training bit somewhere. In my mind, in ideal scenario,
you shouldn't go in water if the instructions are done well. A lot easier said than done, because a lot of things has to go right from the instructor's point of view, student's point of view and all. And I'm not there yet as an instructor, that's my goal. I would like to have a season of sieves with nobody in the water, that's, maybe another 10 years, we'll see. So I...
Gavin McClurg (33:02.934)
Is your... Yeah, they gotta do what you say too.
Karlis (33:20.971)
A flyo is actually very interesting, the story, because it all started with Bruce's interview on my YouTube channel. We posted a video about the 10 % breaks that you should fly hands up or fully down or actively piloting, but not that 5-10 % where you just kind of react and grab a little bit of a break. It was misunderstood because Bruce just said fly with hands up and people took it literally.
and neither I or Bruce realized that that could have been misunderstood so it made a bit of a controversy back then and Malin commented on it, Malin Lobb did and I knew about Flyo and Malin before that and so I sent him an email Malin just basically said that it you know that can be misunderstood and people have misunderstood it so I offered Malin to do an interview for my youtube channel to clear up that
because he's teaching civs. I knew him only by reputation, never met the man before. So he agreed and I went to NSE to decide and sat down with him for about seven hours. We spent that day together on Saturday. It's not all on recorded, of course, but... So, and through the interview, he mentioned that if the instructors are willing and they're willing to share their knowledge and...
Gavin McClurg (34:33.365)
Wow.
Karlis (34:46.528)
welcome pilots to come and learn as long as they leave their ego at home and are actually willing to come and learn. And so I took him up on the offer and then I, that was May and in September the same year I went to spend five days with them on the boat and in the classroom while they run their courses. And then Malin and Fabian would debrief me on what they do, why they do it. And I would ask million questions.
I came back with 15 A4 pages of notes after five days. 15 A4 pages of notes for myself. The detail... It's Fabian and Malin.
Gavin McClurg (35:20.494)
How many?
Gavin McClurg (35:25.422)
my gosh. Awesome. What a treat. man, that would have been awesome.
Karlis (35:42.048)
The detail they go into is... I've never seen anything like it to go in that much precision for the specific maneuvers. They dissect everything, like a simple rotation, when you enter in rotation and exit without no input, natural exit. That's five sections. And rapid is... I think we have an internet thing.
Yeah, we're good. And then, know, Rapida adds another one. and, you know, it's the attention to every detail and explanation and it's all based on the four fundamentals that Malin and Fabian has covered it on this podcast before. And those, I would, I should backtrack before the course, the biggest game changer in my opinion,
Gavin McClurg (36:11.0)
me.
Karlis (36:38.44)
single biggest thing from FlyOS is the pre-course knowledge base and this is something I never thought of myself because I did the same in my courses. It would be the day before or usually the day before or in morning you have a four-hour briefing of each maneuver and how it's all gonna go and all the rest of it. That's four hours of a lot of information I mean with the gear check so it's not
talking for four hours, it's two to three hours of theory and then you have your gear check and off you go. The next day or the same day. That's humanly impossible to get it all in and understand.
Gavin McClurg (37:18.124)
Yeah, our minds can't handle it.
Karlis (37:23.851)
And so the pre-course is all the theory, all the information you need for a CIV course is given to you months ahead. The moment you register for the course, you have access to in detail, extensive knowledge base of everything from simple rotations to stalls to backfly to everything from what the box is, site briefing, you know how you're going to should approach the LZ and all the rest of it.
and you have months to go through that. I took all those ideas and Fyio allowed me to use their curriculum to add in my courses and I have. I've gone as far as I even added exercises that you can do at home. You can already practice some basic things at home so you understand all the concepts. So you come prepared. If you've done your homework, it's a...
I did my last course before going to FLYO in August and my next course was in April. And the result of the progression from the students and how much quicker they understood things, progressed and easier it was for them, it's a night and day between what I was teaching before and applying the structure. And to me, among all the other things, one of the biggest things is the pre-course, knowledge-based. At least the difference between my courses and theirs.
I can't speak of other people's and how they run them. Because people came prepared and they knew already what's this, what's pitch back, point, pitch forward and...
Gavin McClurg (39:05.678)
I would imagine it's just so much less stressful having the time to go through all those things so you're not just getting thrown under the fire. I mean, there's tons of science now that shows that visualization is right.
almost the same as actually doing it. So visualizing, shooting a basketball and landing it every time, just doing it over and over and over, it's the same thing as going to the court and shooting basketballs. So I would imagine just seeing the video, going through the progression, understanding what stalling, what side of the wing or full stalls, all the maneuvers, rapid exit, normal exit, you're doing it in a sense, even though they might not be thinking that they're visualizing and seeing it, but they're watching the video, they're...
their bodies being trained, their minds being trained to actually do the maneuver, right?
Karlis (39:59.488)
Yeah, and I tell them even between the runs to do that on the way up to the mountain, to close your eyes, visualize. Yeah, for sure, visualization works. Amazing for that. And you can practice some basic things, like a simple natural exit with a very low amount of energy, because you don't need a lot of energy. It's enough to just generate a bit of it, release it, wait for it to come out and look for the control.
Gavin McClurg (40:06.99)
Mmm.
Gavin McClurg (40:12.086)
Yeah, yeah, it really is.
Karlis (40:29.173)
find it with one attempt instead of two or three. As most of us cross-country pilots, we control the wing actively, but we rarely control the roll with one input. It's usually multiple. And it's nice to try to do another simple natural exit with a single input to find exactly where the roll is and how much you need to stop it just with that and then have a clean pitch back and let it shoot forward.
Gavin McClurg (40:40.002)
Yeah, right.
Karlis (40:54.506)
And you don't need nose down, you don't need even 45 degree angle. It's a very little energy with very low consequences for that. that's... It's all progression based instead of just throwing you in the deep end and let's see if you got something out of it.
Gavin McClurg (41:12.556)
remember Fabian saying something that really blew my mind, and I might have this wrong because it's been years, but I think one of the first things he does, regardless of the pilot level, so you're a 10-hour ENA pilot or a multi-year World Cup pilot, he has you do a, I think, with the rapid exit. Just, okay, do it, so he can assess you. And I think he was saying that...
some tiny percentage, mean, just tiny, tiny percentage of the really quote unquote good pilots, you the World Cup pilots, pilots that have been at it for a long time that were good World Cup pilots couldn't do that maneuver well. They weren't very good at the most basic foundational maneuvers because he said rather than having kind of a set
And correct me if I'm wrong, because you've worked there, you know it. But rather than having kind of a set curriculum that is, OK, day one, we're going to do an asymmetric collapse, and we're going to do these six things, day one. And then day two, we're going to do these six things, and you're going to end with a full stall the last day. Rather than this would just be, OK, I'm going to watch you do this 360 with a rapid exit, and then we're going to design the course. We're going to design.
every we're not going to have a checkbox that right is that is that the flyo approach they're not they're not going
Karlis (42:42.688)
Yeah, it's not far off. So the reason he asked to show you that, because in that 1.360 rapid exit, it shows you situational awareness. You go through all the axes. And yeah, most pilots can't get it right. Because we all have habits how we can exit it, and it's not a clean rapid. And it's tricky, especially the more airtime you have.
The harder it is to learn this precisely because you have to break habits now. The newer pilots is easier. But the reason they ask is to see where you're at. And the course structure will be similar for all, but what the biggest difference is that there's a lot of time and effort put in the rotations. The natural exit and rapid exit. Rapid being just that you pull by yourself instead of let the wing come out.
and mostly rapid to get it clean. Get it quick, nose down, eventually all the way nose down, quick rapid exit, clean, catch and release and that's it. Without no parasitic over lift roll or everything. Because that means that once you go farther into outer rotations, it's the same family. So it's the same principles to control it. And then if you go in stalls and you have an asymmetric shoot.
autorotation then you can handle it and all that. it's the fundamentals comes in play of course without going too much in detail but the idea is that we spend time in paragliding 80-90 % rotating. Thermaling is a rotation and it's the same as a rapid exit just a smaller energy like you rotate at the less angles and all that.
From the way I see it, if you come to the course and in the three days you only learn the rotations but you really get them, that's a win already for depends on what level. And then next, we're going to try to get you to auto rotation if possible. So you can exit cleanly that and quickly because that's the number one killer in our sport. And only if all goes well and the pilot is able to get through, then we just then we go for negatives and work on those.
Karlis (45:05.685)
So the structure is based on what's most important. So you go from rotations, which we spend most time in, auto rotations to avoid any unwanted meeting with the mountain. And then you go for negatives to clear things. And then you can play with that structure here and there. There's multiple exercises that is...
I would call are the main blocks but there's a lot of different little things you can play with to adjust or get people out of when they're stuck.
Gavin McClurg (45:41.774)
Carlos, front and center on your website, I went to the SIV courses, this is part of your progression, Malin touched on all these as well, but I'd love for you to just speak briefly about the four, it sounds like there's four things that you're most concerned with in your SIVs. The basis support, the disassociating arms, love it.
full break range, so using the full break range of the wing and situational awareness. Can you just touch on each of those? Why are those so important?
Karlis (46:16.395)
Yeah, so I like Marlin's example for a of support. That's the first one, right? So you want to have a good base of support and the easiest thing, meaning lean back and be comfortable in the harness and use the harness as design. And the easiest way to imagine that or visualize that is to imagine a race driver on an exercise ball racing around the track or being snugly held by the bucket seat.
And it's the same in paragliding, if you start leaning forward in your harness, you're not using the full support of the harness. And then the harness is more twitchy and it's not holding you as designed. So you will look for your own body's balance with your hands. As we do, we've learned that as kids, you know, when you fall, you throw your hands out there to catch you. And so when you are more secure in the harness, when you have good base of support,
then you start trusting your harness that you're not going to fall out and that's actually fine to be in any configuration you can find yourself in paragliding, that the harness will be there and you will eventually be caught by it. Then you can start dissociating your arms to control the wing instead of controlling your body posture or, you know, catching yourself. And dissociating arms is incredibly important because usually in paragliding
or actions needed to pilot the wing is contra-intuitive, contra- or instinct. Like if we fall forward, we're gonna put our hands forward, where we have to put them behind us in paragliding. If we fall back, the hands, you know, it's opposite to what we are learned as a human on the ground. So that's, and that needs to be controlled by the mind. This full brake range, that's...
What I mentioned earlier about the talk YouTube video with Bruce, it's that we have to let the wing fly fully when needed and we have to control it fully when needed or whatever amount of brakes needed. But what we definitely don't want to do is hold about five to 10 % brake input on any modern wing that is what creates a lot more aggressive collapses than the certification would predict because certification is a collapse without pilot input.
Karlis (48:40.364)
where once you add input then any ENA wing with those 5 to 10 % break input will have a CCC result on the collapse. YouTube is full of this where you people launch off on the takeoff and just after the takeoff they grab the two toggles in one hand to adjust the harness and they have a massive frontal or asymmetric and they fall out of the sky.
Gavin McClurg (48:49.742)
Mm, wow.
Gavin McClurg (49:03.596)
their airspeed is low.
Karlis (49:06.037)
That airspeed is one and by grabbing even the handles together one hand, you're adding a touch of a brake. And that I call it reversed reflex profile. And that creates a more aggressive pitch movement for the wing and more stable so it doesn't collapse as quick as it should and goes farther and you can fall into the wing just from that.
Gavin McClurg (49:28.462)
Do you see this as a big reason for people taking huge hits coming in to land as well?
Karlis (49:36.3)
Yeah, I actually recently saw a video of that on Lake Garda. Yeah, it's sort of the panic reaction, because we fly, and especially the older pilots, because back in the day it was taught that way, that you should put some the pressure of your arms on the wings. If that was true back then, it's definitely not true anymore today. And the modern wings like to fly hands up or accelerated.
and by hands up I should specify its contact position. I don't mean literally.
Gavin McClurg (50:07.65)
Yeah, you're feeling the wing, but you're not in the brakes. But you're feeling the wing.
Karlis (50:12.863)
Yeah, you're not inducing or bending the trailing edge. Trailing edge is still sharp as knife and then you can correct control it actively as needed when needed and let it fly the moment you've done what you needed to do. so most people don't use that last the top five to 15%. I think we kind of fly at shoulder pressure or, you know, hands roughly at shoulder and deeper and rarely people are willing to go actually all the way up.
And so that's the full brake range, right? So you go all the way zero, contact position and all the way to stall point or stall if you have to for depending. So you get comfortable using the whole brake range. It's the same as driving a car. Sometimes you need to use the full steering wheels rotation, not just, you know, 20, 30%. And the last one is situational awareness because it's all
nice and good to have all the skills that you learned in the CIF, but if you don't know when to use them, then what's the point of them? And so what we do in the course is that throughout the course we will add little pointers to help pilots to look around more and to pay attention more. And the repetition is what really helps you to start looking around. It's again, comparing to cars, because everybody knows a car.
When you start driving as a new driver, all you're thinking is about the rev counts and the gear shifts. So, you know, you're all focused in your cockpit. You barely see that there's, you know, children running in the street or you have very small capacity to see something. Where now, after years of driving, you drive for five hours, you don't remember what you did the five hours, you were thinking about something else. So that's the sort of where we want to get you eventually as a pilot is that the wind control.
That's the physical bit and the situational awareness is that what you actually are there for. Flying cross-country is 95 % mental game, observation and decision-making and only about 5 % of physical input. And the goal is to get you from... And it's the same when you start, you're about 99 % physical with the ground handling. And then the goal is to get you from that to the...
Karlis (52:38.635)
5 % physical as soon as safe as possible so you have your situational awareness and you can keep yourself safe.
Gavin McClurg (52:44.73)
I don't know that there's any statistics to back up what I'm about to say, but just going on what you've just said, I'm curious if you agree with me that in my experience, I would say the large majority of accidents happen because of the loss of that last one, the situational awareness. When I have seen
When I've seen the bad stuff happen, it's because people spend way too long in the cockpit, to use your analogy of being in the car. They forget to look at the ground. They don't react in time. So they've had the margin and they've lost it.
Now, and then there are the really bad accidents where there's just no margin. And there's very little the pilot could have done except give themselves more margin before they got into that position. In other words, being really low. And there's never too low. We should still throw. But the really bad stuff I've seen has been when the cascade goes too long and there's no throw.
Karlis (53:26.986)
Yeah.
Karlis (53:50.892)
Yeah, yeah, I don't know if there's any statistical backup that but yeah, I definitely agree with you on that. That we get tunnel vision when we do when when we new to something and if you collapse for most pilots is something new that they haven't practiced enough on. And when it happens in the wild.
you were just nicely thermaling and all of a sudden this is happening and it's too many things happening at the same time and it's too fast. Most pilots if you ask what happened they're barely gonna recollect and often the recollection will be completely different from the video. If you have a video footage that will be very if you asked straight away after the accident. Yeah it's without...
Proper training and repetition, it's impossible to have full situational awareness because you won't see the details. And without that, that's why they spend so much time in the cascade. And I would say that there's also this, I guess it's the intermediate syndrome, right? When people think that they can fix something but haven't done it for a while and then they spend too much time trying to fix it without, which also comes back to situational awareness today.
Don't look down. How much time do I have left?
Gavin McClurg (55:17.518)
Carlos, two things I wanna talk to you about. One is, we talked about some of these before we started recording, but Jock had some questions. You're running these comps, the Polish, Irish, the Norway, the UK, you're doing these comps in Luron. he had some questions about those. When does weather prediction become an art rather than a science? What does he mean by that?
Karlis (55:48.372)
I think he's referring to... I'm very fortunate with my mentors and the weather is no different. I have a man who's lived in this area for 30 plus years and been a meteorologist for over 40. And also he's a paragliding pilot, so I think he's referring to him. also Jock himself is very good at meteor, so we have had a lot of...
conversations about it during the events. Because it's, especially in this area, it's quite complicated when it comes to airology. So you have the general meteor that you can see in GFS or something, and then the airology kicks in as the day progresses on any thermic day. So the art form, I think what he's referring is the
the understanding of the micro meteorology of the influences that we fly in. And the general meteor is very well documented and that's, know, we're doing pretty good at that as humans, but the micro-meteorology that we fly in,
Gavin McClurg (56:58.892)
the really fine data that the models aren't picking up.
Karlis (57:04.407)
No, we're not there yet. I'm sure eventually, but at the moment for paragliding pilots, so that comes from local knowledge or some, know, if you're really well at understanding, you can bring it on to any other mountains. It's possible. And so, and the Jock on the contrary is very good at reading large systems visually. So you look at the
cloud, at the sky, at the highest layers and he's very, very good at predicting how the system moves for the next hours or day, depending on that, which I'm not very good at, where I'm very good at the micro. So that's where it became an art for the Polish and Irish because we had the local knowledge and the micro meteorology and he had the global.
from observational point of view. And this is without... Of course we used forecasting and all the observations from satellites, but visually seeing it that you can see that, okay, this is going to move there in the next 15-20 minutes and how that will... Especially stratus layers are nice and important for us if they cover the skies and things like that.
Gavin McClurg (58:21.23)
What was the catalyst to get into running comps? Were you, are you an active comp pilot yourself?
Karlis (58:28.651)
no, not at all. I've done, I think, five events myself as a pilot. Well, I did the World Championships as my second competition. But I'm Latvian. you know, yeah, it's not a French team, you know, it's not the same level. Basically, if you qualify by the FAI standard criteria, you're in, because there's nobody else.
Gavin McClurg (58:39.342)
Whoa.
A little easier to make team.
Gavin McClurg (58:48.566)
Right.
Karlis (58:58.859)
No, was a friend of mine, the local campsite owner, the camping on the glen, the RHQ where we hold the events. A couple years ago asked me could we organize our own event? Because we've been friends for years and the Ozone Shabre Open, been running from Shabre for about two decades and he's been hosting that event every time.
He wanted to have some more events in the area and I want to promote it, the area, because I love the place. It's incredibly complicated to fly. At the same time, it's incredibly safe to fly. It's forgiving for tactical mistakes. And weather is incredibly reliable. We have 300 days of sunshine here. So that's how it came about. I went, you know, how hard can it be?
without knowing much more about it. And as you know from your own experience, it's quite a indoor. I am lucky, I have a very strong team. I also fought the comms, same as I've done with everything else in paragliding. I seeked out mentors and I was incredibly lucky with them. The local team for Ozon Shah Bropen.
Gavin McClurg (01:00:00.61)
I could have told you that.
Gavin McClurg (01:00:08.476)
It's an undertaking.
Karlis (01:00:27.055)
as Brian Lewis, they've been supporting through long meetings with me and me asking million questions. Brett Genove endured me for a week in his house last year to ask million questions from him about how do you go about it? What do you need? What's that? I had no clue as an organizer and it's mentors again and asking million questions and no matter
stupid daymized sound in your head but you still ask because you need to know dance and yeah
Gavin McClurg (01:00:59.534)
They're a big team effort. I mean, we get to say we're the meat organizer, but you couldn't do it without.
Karlis (01:01:07.219)
no, no, no, not at all. I'm just connecting people and bringing them together and without the team, it's impossible. I'm incredibly lucky with all the team. We're doing it again next year. We have three events as well. I wouldn't at this stage, because I have limited experience with comp organizing, I wouldn't do it with any other team because these people are...
Karlis (01:01:34.091)
I know them for years, they're local, they know all the places and without them it wouldn't
Gavin McClurg (01:01:41.226)
Yeah. I don't know how comfortable you all talking about this question. We talked about this again before we started recording, but Jock had a question about it sounded like you had to ground one or more pilots for making unsafe decisions. I don't want to throw anybody under the bus here. It's potentially that there'll be listening to this, but what was the reason? What's the
What can we all learn from that? Because obviously we see in comps and organizing comps, and I've done a ton of comps, see people doing some pretty risky things that we'd like to see not happen. But what was the reason to have to do that? I guess that's pulling out the red card. You're going home.
Karlis (01:02:31.803)
Yeah, well, for all three events, I was the safety director. it was and now with there's a whole another story about the new regulations in France after a serious accident. Yeah, after Timo things in France changed quite drastically in well, it actually changed the day before our first event. I had a very long phone call with Julian Garcia that you've had also interviewed.
Gavin McClurg (01:02:45.261)
After Timo?
Gavin McClurg (01:03:00.398)
No.
Karlis (01:03:00.501)
He's been incredibly supportive through all the process and it was... So we had very strict safety rules and regulations set by the French Federation, which I think is a very good thing. It will take some getting used to from the pilot point of view, because now you will have more responsibility as a pilot when you come and join the competition. But I think it will make it a lot safer because...
We didn't have safety issues. I mean, of course we had some incidents and accidents, pilots flying, 150 pilots flying, there will be that. that's a bit off topic, we introduced radio checks before taking off. And radios are mandatory to be on. And I've been in comms myself and I turn it off because it's annoying as hell. But I found that...
Gavin McClurg (01:03:55.266)
Nightmare, yeah.
Karlis (01:04:00.076)
But I did what I learned from Flyo, pre-course knowledge base. So I did pre-comp emails to inform pilots about these new requirements, what we expect from them. And it helped. And then of course, repeating it all, safety briefings, and a everyday and takeoff. And as our team got better at it as well, the last event, the radio checks took less than 15 minutes on the takeoff for 150 pilots.
Gavin McClurg (01:04:27.662)
So what are you doing? So before you launch, you're checking straps. You kind of have a system where maybe you're checking the harness straps, chin strap, and radio that their PTT is working. Is that what you're doing?
Karlis (01:04:41.353)
Yeah, so that's all explained in emails and safety briefing that pilots should try to do it at the home before. the PTT, so radio check is a literal radio check, pilot number such and such, and they give it back. And in this radio check, you can pick out the faulty PTTs, the ones who get stuck or I go, and I even was able to recognize just by the tone after a while, because it, and the same pilots will have the same issues.
throughout the comp. So you pick them out quite quickly and I swapped out some radios. We have a bunch of extra ones and we gave them pre-programmed radios for the event and it solved an issue there. Also, another thing introduced is that maximum time to talk on the radio is 30 seconds and suggested is 15 and that also limits that noise that you get in the competition all the time.
pilots transmitting all the time so that the 30 second
Gavin McClurg (01:05:40.898)
So this is a setting you're actually changing on people's radios.
Karlis (01:05:44.65)
They change themselves. All the radios has it, as far as I know. All the radios has a time to talk limiter. And we send the instructions and email where to look for it. And then, you you pick up a manual, you find your radios manual and you'll find which setting that is. It's pretty simple to do.
Gavin McClurg (01:06:01.674)
I'm gonna need to get these from you. is great. I've learned it a lot.
Karlis (01:06:04.905)
Yeah, for radios, before the competitions, I went down the rubber hall with multiple radio experts to learn all this. I already knew quite a bit for my own courses, but for comps. Yeah, so we had very little PTT issues. And even in the air, it's
And we also talked about how to respond in case of emergency. I'm going off topic from the original question. Because in the Polish, the first competition we did, the Polish and Irish, we had a rescue throw and there were three to five pilots trying to transmit at the same time in Polish, trying to help. And one of them transmitted for about a minute and a half.
Gavin McClurg (01:06:35.32)
No, that's okay. That's all right. This is fascinating to me.
Karlis (01:06:58.239)
talking and trying to explain the situation but his mic was exposed to the wind and the whole minute and half was just blocked. So this is another place where the time to talk is a great thing to have to cut off and then you can tell the pilot like look your mic you know cover the mic.
Gavin McClurg (01:07:04.725)
useless.
Gavin McClurg (01:07:15.534)
You're wasting your breath, yeah.
Karlis (01:07:18.307)
And he's also wasting valuable time for the organizer. So we talked about it for the next events that it has to be short, precise, concise. You have to think before you talk. Things like that, simple things, because everybody, the people who are on radios, they want to help. They're not trying to annoy their organizer. But when you do these simple things, before you're to say something, think what you're to say, then prepare yourself, press the...
Gavin McClurg (01:07:37.955)
Right.
Karlis (01:07:47.764)
short messages within the 15 to 30 seconds max and let it go and wait for the response. because it's Europe, we have multiple languages, we specified it all has to be in English because the team doesn't speak all your national languages. English is the language we run the event in. Things like this seems very simple, but reminding it...
over and over and over again and also I as a safety director was not allowed to launch anybody who didn't have the working radio. That's a request from FFVL now. So once you tell that to the pilots if you don't do the radio check you're not flying today things get easier and it's not that I want to ground people it's not like we had extra radios we were prepared for in case and we did swap out multiples you know
radios break, people sit on them, know, things happen. But, and then things like this, like the simple thing is time to talk and radio chicken take off and make... Because when I did my first events, I thought radio is just, you know, whatever they're going to tell me when the weather is bad or all that. But the real importance of radio is that from the organization point of view, from the safety point of view is that once a pilot is missing, meaning that you're...
Flymaster tracker or whichever live tracking system you're using is not working for whatever reason. It's electronics. They're not 100 %... If we can't reach them on the radio, the next one will be phone of course, but not everybody can... Then we need that frequency to ask other pilots to locate somebody. And if your live tracking is off and you switch your radio on and we can't find you,
We assume the worst and we act accordingly. We have protocol for that, what we do. And up to calling a helicopter and search and rescue within very short period of time. We inform the emergency service 15 minutes. 15 to 30 minutes is where we inform them that we might have a... So it's really short period of time and if...
Gavin McClurg (01:09:49.379)
Yeah.
Gavin McClurg (01:10:04.718)
Yeah.
Karlis (01:10:09.439)
So this radio checks and PTTs, that's incredibly important to have it working. And not reaching a pilot is something historically that has... Yeah, I don't want to get in. Yeah, it can be a problem if you can't communicate with the pilot or find them. And then on...
Gavin McClurg (01:10:27.406)
from. Yeah.
Gavin McClurg (01:10:33.347)
Yep.
Karlis (01:10:36.917)
top of that when you have 150 pilots and one of pilots are not applying to these rules then organization is focused on that one and you jeopardize the rest of the pack. It's a snowball effect. So that's more but to answer the original question about grounding a pilot it's multiple failed takeoffs and putting himself at danger was the only pilot that I actually had to stop on takeoff because
just didn't have the skill to control the boomerang. I was about three days into the event that I... no, later. I think it was one of the last days and I've noticed that already before throughout the competition.
Gavin McClurg (01:11:21.836)
Yeah, multiple blown launches. And what did you do? Just said, hey, pull you out of the line. You just had to kind of sit him down and.
Karlis (01:11:25.545)
Yeah, and
Karlis (01:11:33.098)
Well, he kind of rolled down the mountain, not mountain, the slope is quite gradual. it's just kind of, yeah, in Schärbrö, so it's not, it's nothing dangerous, just a few bruises on, know, and, and it was, I think it was about 20 minutes left till the window or 15 minutes left till the window closed for the start. And by the time he would get back on the mountain and it's like, you know, so it wasn't a, I didn't.
Gavin McClurg (01:11:40.015)
I know, this is Laron or Lashaw, yeah, yeah, I know that one.
Karlis (01:12:02.143)
had to stop him, you know, just as a window open. So the timing aligned well and he was bruised up and his harness was damaged. was an easy call and nobody was upset. Other than that, I haven't had anybody in takeoff that I had to stop. And in the air, even though we have protocols for that, are, again, with the new rules in France is that if we have no live tracking,
and I can't track you on an instrument, you have to report back to me every 10 minutes or so. So radio contact. And then if you don't... And then that's up to the safety director's discretion. If I have one and I feel like I can safely track him, that's fine. But if I have two or three, I might land all of them because I can't anymore track three or...
No, two or three pilots without live tracking just on the radio.
Gavin McClurg (01:13:01.518)
You mean you might stop the task?
Karlis (01:13:03.869)
No, landed pilots without tracking. then of course to not penalize pilots for instrument failure, we have a backup with PureTrack, which is you can use any live tracking device you have from inreaches to your phones to anything you have. You put it in one place and we have a group for Devon, so we have a backup tracking for everybody.
Gavin McClurg (01:13:06.328)
Okay, gotcha.
Karlis (01:13:30.023)
And then of course, our first thing is if your live tracking is not working, we go for the backup. And if we can't find you in the backup, then we proceed because we don't want to interfere with other pilots competing and talking in radio. If we can avoid it, we don't talk on radio. A perfect task is radio silence the whole way, except us saying that it's all good, you know. Every now and then we'll say something so you still know that we're there. But ideally you hear nothing. That would be...
Gavin McClurg (01:13:57.55)
Do you create a specific safety group of pilots or is everybody on your safety committee? I've gone back and forth with this. We've had comps where everybody's on the safety committee. in other words, mean, anybody is always in the comps I've run, anybody can call in a level.
at any time, know, level one, level two, level three. If you've got a concern, you can call, but we've gone back and forth with that. We've had it so everybody can be on the safety committee, but then that was hit, especially in the world cup. didn't like that. They wanted a safety committee and they wanted three or four pilots that were, we would try to pick out pilots that you're going to have some in the front, some in the middle, some in the back. And they're really the safety committee. And again, anybody can call in, but
these are the people who are, in a sense, paying more attention to.
Karlis (01:14:51.749)
Yeah, so for us, we had a safety committee of three pilots chosen from the event. Anybody can call in level as they want. If it's level three, you have to land. If you're to call level three, you land immediately yourself. So there's no manipulation with that. We didn't find that it's an issue that pilots would call in too much levels. Maybe we just got lucky because...
Gavin McClurg (01:15:08.6)
Yep.
Karlis (01:15:21.609)
It's only three events. And the safety committee was, they gave us some nice feedback when it was early thermals or before the start and things like that. That's where safety committee can talk more. And the rest of the pilots were welcome to do the levels as they see fit. And we had a few times where pilots would call level that wasn't there.
and it's because they were on lee side or it was a rough thermal for them. So we check live tracking where the pilot is because it's requested, you know, pilot number such and such and we check, we have a look, satellites visually, physically, because in France it's requested to have safety director and meat director. So the meat director, so safety director follows the pack roughly middle of the track so we, I can physically see the sky.
Gavin McClurg (01:15:55.436)
Yep.
Karlis (01:16:20.107)
plus we have meteorologists of course and so we have multiple people on the ground checking the weather and tracking everybody. And then if it is level such and such and we see this like drizzling rain level two but it's not just drizzling then we see we say that such and such TP has such and such conditions. But we haven't found the issue with that. I think with a higher level more competitive
Gavin McClurg (01:16:40.888)
Okay.
Karlis (01:16:49.289)
I guess there can be more issues with levels.
Gavin McClurg (01:16:53.262)
Yeah, well, we learned in this last one, because we had pretty dynamic weather for the World Cup, is...
We had one day in particular that got pretty spicy and we knew it was going to get spicy. We were trying to pull off a short task in a short window. We knew it was going to go ballistic and it did. And just before I called the task, I requested level. I hadn't heard any levels, not from my safety committee and not from anybody. But I was standing right there. I was on top of the mountain, the lead pack was coming into goal, which was right in front of launch.
I wanted, hey, let's hear some levels. I got a couple level twos in the lead pack and that was it. What we decided afterwards, because it was clearly level three, but it was what we learned. People don't like calling level three. It's a cultural thing that I think needs to shift.
I don't know if it's shame, there's partly like what you said, if you call level three, you've got to land. But I mean, you get in this competition mindset that, I'm not hearing anybody else call it. So maybe it's still two, level two. But it was very interesting because we had a big debrief on it. what we came up with, the end result was that there's a stigmatism.
to calling level three that I think needs to change in our community. it's not something we even need to discuss right now, but it's interesting. think there's a real reticence of pilots from pilots to call level three.
Karlis (01:18:29.792)
Yeah.
Yeah, I can see that. It's also when me as a pilot in my limited competitions, I didn't even feel comfortable early in my career to go on the radio and say anything. There's also that. Where now, I think there could be more, the safety briefings is one, but before the competitions, this could be discussed, I think.
Gavin McClurg (01:19:00.812)
Yeah, I think so too. Carlos, we're way already past our time limit, but I cannot let you go without asking you about my favorite subject in all the world, the X-Alps. You supported Tio, who I love, in 21. I raced in that one as well. And you might recall, he and I were battling at the back at that one around Dent to Osh. I didn't get to see you guys that day, but.
Karlis (01:19:27.519)
Yeah, you passed us.
Gavin McClurg (01:19:29.172)
Yeah, after the, he had an airspace penalty delay there, right? And he'd had quite a, as we all had in that one, the weather was atrocious in 21, but he had quite an eventful competition with hitting the cable. But I'd love to just, and again, we don't have a ton of time to dive into it as we could have a whole show on the X-Alps, but just from your perspective as a supporter,
Karlis (01:19:35.114)
Yeah.
Gavin McClurg (01:19:59.264)
any maybe a really good story from the race or any big takeaways? I mean, did guys walk away from that going, my God, that was just stupid, crazy fun. What was the, where'd you land on at the end? Because I know it was tough for him at the end.
Karlis (01:20:17.771)
For me it was an amazing adventure but I was on the ground. Personally I would not fly in those conditions. That's just not my cup of tea, you guys. You know, as a spectator for Xelps, I knew the race is tough but I had no idea. Watching the live trackings from my home and all that, I had no clue. I gained so much more respect for all the pilots who have ever done the races.
Gavin McClurg (01:20:28.012)
Yeah.
Karlis (01:20:47.635)
It's insane. At least that year was absolutely insane for the conditions. The walking, the hiking, and I did about 30 % of what Theo did when it comes to walking and hiking, but I didn't need to fly in that exhaustion. It's not the same.
For me, going in, I knew that Theo and I were going to hate each other or we were going to be friends after this. And there's no two other outcomes. This kind of adventure, there's only two options, really, right? You're never going to talk with that person again or you're going to be friends for life. So luckily we're friends. It went very good. I was very happy the team got together and the whole
Gavin McClurg (01:21:35.342)
Great.
Karlis (01:21:41.91)
We had a really great adventure. We were really dialing in before the cable. We getting good, catching up, getting to the mid-pack and the cable just... I think that was the turning point for the event for us. And even then, after, was getting good and the airspace was the choice between airspace or trees. So, CO2 airspace.
Gavin McClurg (01:21:50.488)
Yeah.
Gavin McClurg (01:22:05.784)
Yeah, and Sion, that's gotten so many pilots over the years. Where he hit the cable and what was the...
Karlis (01:22:16.066)
yeah, what's the name? It's just near Martin. Just near Martin. I need a map for that.
Gavin McClurg (01:22:16.962)
The other guy that hit it, jeez.
Yeah, yeah, but I mean, was Aaron Durgati has a crazy story about flying in cloud in that same valley. And I have flown up and down from going both ways through that, because the cables are actually really bad on both sides of that pass, where he hit them and on the other side as well, nor the Switzerland side, guess, or the northern side. But I have flown through there just recreationally. And it is
terrifying. It's just incredible. I remember after Theo hit it, and who was the other pilot? Why am I drawn such a blank? There was the other pilot who broke his back. He got helicoptered out. I can't believe it. I don't know how these memories go, but yeah, the Italian, the young guy, he's amazing.
Karlis (01:23:03.647)
Yeah. I'm drawing a blank as a-
Karlis (01:23:10.321)
Italian athletes, yeah, it will come back
Gavin McClurg (01:23:16.846)
Anyway, I remember that Jurgen called me as I was walking into that valley, because I was behind you guys at that point. for me, too, things were starting to get better. I had a horrible start. And then things were starting to get better. Actually, Teo and I were together early on in the race. I remember Jurgen actually calling me. just he was almost, you could hear the tension and the fear in his voice.
Please be careful. Please be careful going through this area. Make sure you have the, know, cause you have that cable layer on your phone and it can show the cables and it's just, it's a dicey place to fly, especially if you're low and you're on the train, which we are.
Karlis (01:23:59.5)
And that specific valley is... That specific valley... I met a local guy paragliding pilot who was from the valley and I took him in the car and went through the old valley and he showed me every single cable ahead of where Theo hit after we got there. And even though he went up and took off again and he hit again almost again another cable that we didn't see.
Karlis (01:24:26.387)
and we were on the ground in the car with binoculars looking ahead and it's just... their fingers thick. Yeah.
Gavin McClurg (01:24:32.086)
It's insane. You can't even describe it. It's just unbelievable. And they're totally invisible. There's so many of them, those little single thin ones that are invisible. One of the things I started suggesting to many others when they were in that era, if they're just free-flying, just make sure you don't have polarized sunglasses. Because then they're really invisible. That was something I learned too late.
Karlis (01:24:56.692)
Yeah, I say that you should fly above the grass. Fly at the cliff height, don't fly at the grass, because it's to collect hay mostly for cows. So it's above the grass line, there's usually no these little cables. That's what I've been told at least.
Gavin McClurg (01:25:01.282)
Yeah.
Gavin McClurg (01:25:06.445)
Yeah.
Gavin McClurg (01:25:12.556)
Yeah, right. Yeah, if you're just surfing the trees on the side, where we always do, and we're just trying to get some extra distance, you're going to hit one. It's almost guaranteed. They're coming out of those trees.
Karlis (01:25:26.644)
No.
Gavin McClurg (01:25:29.422)
Cool, well, thanks for sharing that. Yeah, I'm glad you guys are friends. That's a good place to end a pretty radical adventure, but thanks for all this, Carlos. A real pleasure talking to you, and I look forward to either flying in one of your comps or doing an SIV with you or doing something fun with you in the future, but I appreciate it.
