We depart from the Red Bull X-Alps in this episode and dive into a whole bunch of questions that have come in this past year from our listeners. And instead of answering them on my own we return to Karlis Jaunpetrovičs, former test pilot for BGD and current head of his own instructional SIV, coaching, and guiding (as well as running competitions) company Flying Karlis. We cover a lot of very solid ground here, especially when we got into reserves. Topics include:
• Stepping down in glider class
• Stepping up in glider class
• All about harnesses… open vs pod, fairing vs no fairing, seatboard vs hammock, sub vs non-sub.
• Coming back to paragliding after being away from it
• Stepping away from PG, what’s on the other side?
• A more practical discussion about SIV, also practicing maneuvers outside of SIV
• How to climb better
• How to forecast better
• How to glide better, and everyday speedbar use
• Mitigating the testosterone driven decision making afflicting our sport
• All about reserves from a reserve expert (round vs square vs rogallo, lightweight vs regular weight, how to decide the actual right size, actual lifespan of reserves, repacking them safely, factors on reserve/bridle connections, sink rate, why isn’t projected area advertised? In depth discussion about down-planing and size of reserves relative to size of wing, tips on throwing in different situations)”
Enjoy!
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Gavin McClurg (00:22.498)
Carlos, great to have you back to the show. I appreciate you doing this for me. All these questions have been coming in in the last few months and I decided to kind of compile them together and ask somebody more knowledgeable than I am about some of these topics. pretty much we were just talking before we started recording, most of these topics have been hit.
in the show, well really all of them have at some point, but I thought this is a good opportunity for us to, you know, A, make sure we're being current and get your potentially very fresh thoughts, especially on reserve. Reserves will save that for the end. Sounds like you might have some...
controversial views, but also some exciting developments in that realm. So I'm excited to hear about that. But thanks for coming on the show. I appreciate it. I understand your shoulders been locked up for the last 90 days because my first question was going to be, you been participating in all these huge FAIs that have been going down? Europe's had a really good bunch of weather in last few weeks since I've been serious FOMO with X-Contest.
Flying Karlis (01:29.204)
Hi and thank you for having me back. Yeah, I haven't flown. I've been watching them doing big beautiful fights and some of them are above my house and my own local site was the site record was broken by 70 kilometers if I improved on the day we've had. Overall, the weather has been pretty marginal, but the days that were good were exceptionally good days that come.
once in four five years, days that I haven't seen in eight years that I've been here. So the weather has been exceptionally good when it was good. And then it's kind of mixed bag of weather in between. And the boys here and girls has really utilized the good days and it's been incredible flying here. Chabre, I thought 250 is the limit. The person did 270 FAI from Chabre and this is a Southeast facing.
late afternoon, it starts around 11.30 usually and he took off at 11. at 11.30 is early. It's been incredible flying here. I'm jealous. I had the worst year to choose to have a frozen shoulder that I can't fly myself.
Gavin McClurg (02:36.098)
Wow, cool. Yeah.
Gavin McClurg (02:45.004)
And you didn't do that flying, you did that doing pushups, I guess.
Flying Karlis (02:49.736)
Yeah, it's just hitting 40 and doing my regular irregular push ups that I've done since I was late teens and I would come on the routine for a week or two, stop for a week or two and just restart without thinking about it. Now I'm 40 and I didn't warm up and I would do sets of 30, 50 and without any worries because I've done that all my life, adult life anyway. And yeah.
Gavin McClurg (02:53.133)
Yeah.
Flying Karlis (03:17.588)
You can't do that when you're 40, you need to warm up and properly prepare. And it started in November and then by May, late April, May is when I had my last flight because I just can't raise my hand more than 90 degrees and more till it recovers. Yeah, no paragliding related.
Gavin McClurg (03:22.062)
Pleasures of aging, God.
Gavin McClurg (03:33.237)
Ugh, I'm sorry man. What a bummer. Well, plenty of instructing and events and I know you've been busy.
and I hope you get better quickly. Well, let's get into this list. So the first thing we're gonna talk about is stepping up and stepping down in glider class. And this is for sure a topic we've covered several times. I always like hearing, Ogden had some great thoughts about this, but I'd love to hear your thoughts, because you do a lot of instructing. You've seen both, I'm sure, personalities. There are personalities who take it really slow and wanna check all the boxes.
And there are personalities that just want to hop on an Enzo right off the bat and go fast and compete with everybody else. I think there's some solid advice going both ways. We've covered when to step up a lot. We haven't covered too much when to step down. So I'd like to get your thoughts on that.
Flying Karlis (04:31.476)
Yeah, I've done both ways. I've gone all the way to the triple C's and I've gone from triple C back to ENA. In short, in a nutshell, if you're going to take one thing out of this question is it's all about currency. And in paragliding, currency is the king. It matter that it's like I compare it to marathon running. It doesn't matter that you once could, if you don't practice, you're not going to run the marathon tomorrow. And it's the same flying higher aspect ratio wings that
you know, all the, doesn't matter even the high aspect, sea wings, two-liners these days can be a handful comparing lead to a nice easy beat. And it's really comes down to currency. Like for me, the example is that I, at a time I was flying peak four, a two-line D wing before COVID and COVID was my first break of paragliding as for most of us, we had a lot of layoff.
And personally, I had no idea what a nut currency mean before that. I was, my longest break was two weeks before and COVID gave several months, if not more. And I went back on the same day that I flew before COVID after several months off, went in the spring day, first of April of all days in French Alps, St. André, flew for 30, 40 minutes and lost the wing. I could, my mind could tell me that I'm doing things wrong.
but my body wasn't there because these higher more technical wings require more precision. So my timing was too soon, too late, too strong, too weak. It was just off. And even though I can see I'm making mistakes, I couldn't catch up and I couldn't fix it in time. So it ended up in the reserve toss for myself. And physically I was fine, but mentally that took me three years to recover. And that's something to consider if you're stepping up, is it really worth it?
Do you have the currency? And you can put numbers, you should have X amount of hours per year for this or that class. Really depends. To me, it's all about active piloting, how current you are. I've done thousands of hours, you know, test piloting. I had a big CV before the incident. Doesn't matter. Because I took several months off and my skills went away and I couldn't handle the wing.
Flying Karlis (06:53.204)
And if I lose skills after several months, a decade of dedication of priority number one, two and three and having no other jobs or other distractions, then what about if you only fly 50 to a hundred hours a year? The currency just isn't there. Maybe for some people it lasts longer, for some, you know, it's all individual in the end of the day. But I would say that.
If you have the currency, you've had a couple of good years that you're flying a lot, you're putting in the hours, you've done a save or you are able to do yourself backflies and all the sorting out of the bin, then stepping up is no problem. But if you're just stepping up to make that extra 50 kilometer flight or whatever, add to your numbers, the stepping up will only slow you down. And then mental traumas, if you get lucky and don't get physical traumas.
takes often a lot longer than the physical to recover. so stepping up, I say that it's, it depends, it always depends what mentorships you have, what kind of flying you do, because you know, hundred hours soaring will not help you in Alps. A hundred hours in Alps will help you with soaring, because it's a different type of flying. And Alps in September or April is not the same. And it all depends, because you can fly
a high aspect wing in the laminar wind and there's no issue with that. You take that in eight meters a second, it's a whole nother ball game. It always depends. nowadays, now that bees that comes out, the high bees or low seas, they're incredible wings. Those machines are so much better than some D-wings from five, six, seven years ago. We don't really, I think it's a...
misconception. We have the classes and people think that A wing is a shit wing for cross country, which is not true anymore. Low bees these days can do 150-200 kilometer flights with no issue in the right hands and right conditions. So that's the stepping up part. Stepping down, what I say to my students a lot is that in other like kite surfing, you have kite for this wind, that wind, you have different sizes and you
Flying Karlis (09:11.284)
usually have five or whatever of them sitting in your garage, maybe tend to have one or two. Why don't we have different wings for different conditions? You have your low B for really rough days that you're not comfortable with. When it's smoother, nicer, take the higher aspect wing out and see, and you switch between. I think it's not the cheap sport as such and all the rest of it. So, but the hospitals are way more expensive than buying another wing.
That's kind of when people talk about that, it's like, you're working on a skill and you're choosing the tool for the conditions, not all, and then you can adapt. Cause it's a lot easier to handle something like Epic 2 than the Diva 2. It's a different machine and it requires all the skill or conditions because you can fly Diva in perfectly smooth evening air and not have a worry.
Gavin McClurg (09:41.11)
you
Gavin McClurg (09:58.243)
You can fly Diva in perfectly smooth evening air and
Flying Karlis (10:06.994)
I think what we're missing in this sport is that we tend to have all that one wing and that's it. We don't switch around and we fly it throughout the season from April to September and the season changes. And if our skill is not adequate, it's not a bad idea to switch the wing. As an example, now when I'm going to go once my shoulder recovers, I'm not going to fly the Diva. I'll take my girlfriend's Epic 2, which is a smaller size, and I'll fly that.
Gavin McClurg (10:07.534)
think what we're missing in this board is that we tend to have all that one wing and that's it. We don't switch around. And we fly it throughout the season, from April to September.
Flying Karlis (10:36.168)
just to get the feeling back before I consider stepping on it. Because I've learned my lesson years ago when I threw the rescue. I don't want to repeat the same thing. and I respect more pilots who do that than it's like, no, it's okay. I can do it. There is a bit of a stigma, right? I'm a C pilot or D pilot and I don't want to go back down to the B. I think that conversation should be changed in our sport. There's nothing wrong.
Gavin McClurg (10:58.062)
I don't want to go back down to the beat. I think that's when the session should be changed.
Flying Karlis (11:05.15)
Switching up and down.
Gavin McClurg (11:06.988)
Yeah, I think we need to learn how to reframe as a culture backing off that that should be celebrated, you know, not looked down on. And we certainly saw that in this.
ex-Alps, you know, there were people like Simone who ended up doing really well who didn't launch that night in the storm, just looked at it and went, no, not doing it, and walked down and it didn't penalize him at all, did it? I he did really well in the end. And so, you know, I think as a culture, we sometimes celebrate the wrong things and we need to applaud those decisions for, you know, walking down, stepping down, because they're not always
obvious is it? mean when you had you experienced something that was very obvious, I'm not tuned up, I'm not current and then boom but it's not going to always be that obvious. You it might just be these little things where you're just two percent off where you need to be and that may just be you know a week or two flying a lower wing and kind of getting back in touch and you're not looking up so much and freaked out and your heart's not racing as much and
you know, get back to where things feel good.
Flying Karlis (12:24.712)
Yeah, I mean, even Bruce Goldsmith told me a couple of years ago that nowadays he, if he doesn't fly for a week or two, he doesn't go to a two-liner. He'll take a B wing or C wing, have a few flights and then go back, fly the two-liner once he's refreshed. This is Bruce Goldsmith. The rest of us mortals. If he does that, why are we having this like, you know, I can't step down.
Gavin McClurg (12:36.248)
Hmm.
Gavin McClurg (12:42.83)
Yeah, this is someone who's won the world. Yeah.
Gavin McClurg (12:55.042)
That's interesting. I've never actually heard that, we should go to, we should have a different kit. We should have a couple more pieces of kit in our garage. That's a great, I hadn't heard that before. I like that thought.
Flying Karlis (12:55.092)
I'm sure if you talk with a...
Flying Karlis (13:08.405)
Well, how many skis did you have when you raced?
Gavin McClurg (13:11.138)
Exactly 18 pairs when I was really serious, you know, and my whole garage was filled with skis. I mean, I've got a lot of wings, but they're all D's or higher, you know, I don't have any B's or C's. So this is something I'm going to be thinking about. This is great.
Flying Karlis (13:17.425)
and somehow
Flying Karlis (13:24.116)
I have at home good old-fashioned Epyx XS's to have fun or smaller size than I need. Winter hike and fly, I don't take the Diva. I take something fun, easy to fly and to keep my active piloting going. I call it active piloting because Acro is what Caesar and Theo de Blik does. I'm just playing. I'm not at their level. But it's a nice, fun toy to play around.
Gavin McClurg (13:34.69)
Mm.
Gavin McClurg (13:46.976)
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Gavin McClurg (13:53.154)
Yeah.
Flying Karlis (13:54.933)
I don't remember how long ago, but this hit me because all the other sports, we always have multiple toys. Even for cars, we have different tires for different traction. And yet in this sport, we go with the same. Most of us, anyway.
Gavin McClurg (14:05.326)
You're right.
Gavin McClurg (14:11.5)
Yeah. I like that. That's a good thought. All right, harnesses. Open versus pod, fairing versus no fairing, seat board versus hammock, sub versus non-sub. And we could go real deep here. That's a lot just in itself right there, but let's get your thoughts on harnesses.
Flying Karlis (14:32.708)
I guess I'll start with the simplest one, the sub or non-sub. If you're not chasing world records or flying in PWC or some high level comps, you don't need it. It has the performance and the stability. Stability, other harnesses has the same level of stability. Yes, it has the performance, but most of us, we can't utilize it. There's so much more we need to do. A simple Impreza 4 will be as nice and stable for you.
uncomparably simpler to operate with and visibility issues and all that. So for subs, I think it's a great thing for the sport. We have been focused on wings so much and finally we're now moving also in harness, so it's a great thing. But for most of us, it's not needed. When it comes to open versus pod, of course, when you learn for acro, active piloting, seated is more
more adequate, let's put it that way. For pod, the moment you want to do some distance or even if you want to fly for three plus hours, it's just more comfortable. The position, the way you are, I would recommend not to go for the lightest out there. Go for medium or heavy, nicer, more comfortable. The wing will be more calm, the lighter the harness, the more twitchy the wing.
Gavin McClurg (15:50.703)
medium or heavy, nicer, more comfortable, the wing will be more calm, the lighter the harness, the more twitchy the wing, the heavier the harness, the more stable the wing, any wing, it doesn't matter.
Flying Karlis (15:58.153)
The heavier the harness, the more stable the wing. Any wing, it doesn't matter which wing you're flying. And if it's your first pod, don't get the X-Alp stuff. That's too twitchy, too uncomfortable. It will be cutting in your ribs. it's just, when you have, it serves a purpose. And if your mission is hike and fly in low Bivic and that's really what you're going for, sure. Yeah. Get the lightest stuff. But if you just want to fly across country, get something medium or heavy.
The heavier it is, the more comfortable it is. Not only for your physical thing, but also for thermoling, for aggressive air, it all dampens down. And it really comes down to simple thing that the less material there is, the less structure integrity you can build, not integrity in the sense of safety, because they all are very nice, or most of the harnesses that we have on the market is really safe. It's the comfort.
And Potter Gliding is supposed to be 95 % mental game once we get there. And if the harness is twitching and the wing is talking too much, you'll be focused on all those distractions. And the more comfortable you are in the harness, the more you will be able to make better decisions. And that will make you better flights and make your personal goals and all the rest of it. How more conceited for pods? It's really...
I don't remember when was the last time I've flown seated pod. Mine's are kind of semi, I don't personally see a huge difference because the lying down position gives you less weight shift authority anyway. It depends how they are built. This is to me personally, I think it's all about comfort and what you prefer. My body is different from yours and everybody are different.
Gavin McClurg (17:32.911)
I don't personally see a huge difference because the lying down position gives you less weight shift authority anyway. It depends how they are built. To me personally, think it's all about comfort. What you prefer. My body is different from yours and everybody is different.
Flying Karlis (17:55.445)
When it comes to weight shift, if you set up your pod properly, meaning that your eyes basically is over the cockpit and not your upper body, then your weight shift authority goes very, it's not limited. It's a lot less than when you're sitting up vertically. And if you're to go for pod, idea is the aerodynamics. But also not necessarily because you can sit up. It's less aerodynamic, but it's more comfortable.
Gavin McClurg (17:56.239)
When it comes to weight shift, if you set up your pod properly, meaning that your eyes basically is over the cockpit and not your upper body, then your weight shift authority goes very... it's not limited, it's a lot less than when you're sitting up vertically. And if you're gonna go for pod, the idea is to have dynamic.
Flying Karlis (18:23.356)
and then you'll have a bit more weight shift authority. Of course seated will give you more authority if you're sitting upright. But if you're leaning back as it's designed, I don't know if there's a huge difference because some of those hummocks are pretty well done with the weight shift as well. So my best advice is go to something like CoupiCar or any other testable, sit in all of them and find the one that fits your body. Because the flaring...
Flaring thing, don't go for the big ones because they're messy and they can go in front of your eyes when you have backflies or some sort of mess in there. A simple pod with a small flaring in the back or no flaring, it depends what you want to use it for. And if it's your first, don't worry about it. The extra performance is not going to change your life. It's the decision making and all that is way more important. So it's really harnesses is all about.
what fits your body and adjust it to your body, which is more tricky sometimes maybe. All the rest of it, when to step up on the pod, that's a whole another topic, but again, it's highly individual to me. I don't have an hour or time. It's more the purpose. What for? Winter flying is a lot nicer in pod than seated. It's warmer, for example. And if it's a calm winter flying, then the pod won't be an issue.
And I don't see pod being an issue in general and sieves. There's a lot of conversation about that. What's safer and all that. I don't see large difference if you bend your legs after something happens. So you can follow the wing and that's habit to train a bit. yeah, to me, it's just comfort and don't go for the big ones. If, if you need answer to this question, don't go for SAP.
Gavin McClurg (19:57.615)
I don't see a large difference if you bend your legs after something happens so you can follow the thing.
Gavin McClurg (20:09.774)
Yeah.
Gavin McClurg (20:17.806)
If you need answers to this question, don't go for something.
Flying Karlis (20:20.54)
I've all put it down there.
Gavin McClurg (20:33.506)
piece of equipment is a compromise on something. When we fly the Cadillacs, when we're racing, they're also really heavy. They're hard to carry around. If you land out, they're hard to get back. remember Baptiste was here at the World Cup last year and he didn't want to hike his gear 10 feet, because he's got 15 kgs of lead in it, ballasting up and stuff. So it's all a compromise. flying eight hours, if that's your goal, on super lightweight X-Alps kit is not the same as flying
medium, comfortable, two reserves, a Cadillac harness. I just had a nice flight a couple days ago and I kept thinking, gosh, I'm really glad I'm on this rather than my X-Alps kit, because it's just more physical, it's more work, it's a compromise. You're always compromising something.
Flying Karlis (21:23.24)
Yeah, I agree. I mean, I flew the X-Alps Range 2 for two seasons and I switched to Impreza, which is pretty much the two extremes. I couldn't understand why I punished myself because I did the eight hour flights in the X-Alps harness, it's not. And range is amazing for lightweight harness. It's an amazing machine. The Range I haven't flown the 3. But just the Impreza.
much more comfortable because there's so much more material and you can make it comfortable and yeah yeah exactly and hiking yeah but i don't hike that much these days back then i was you know doing some hiking and now i i get picked up and you know take a car up the mountain so yeah i agree it's it's it's that's why we have so many harnesses you can choose what purpose and have a few same as wings you know
Gavin McClurg (21:53.539)
Yeah, it's easier driving a Cadillac.
Yeah.
Flying Karlis (22:21.82)
Why not have a few?
Gavin McClurg (22:22.23)
Why not have a few?
Gavin McClurg (22:49.442)
tits up, then you're not going, yeah, I'm on this harness. that, you know, I had a pretty wild mistake doing that a few years ago, you know, doing some acro stuff over the desert, know, towing over the dirt and just had switched out my harness the night before. And that's a whole story in itself. was everybody who's listening to the podcast. No, you know, you know about this one. Yeah.
Flying Karlis (23:07.216)
I remember that story, yeah. Good on you for going public about it. Not many people would.
Gavin McClurg (23:12.358)
God, but part of it was literally just when I threw the first, it wasn't attached, and then I forgot that I had a second. I watched it kind of laughing and then went, wait a minute, I got another reserve. So yeah, making sure when you switch out your gear, your mind can forget. If you've been spending a lot of time on one and you switch to another, it's just good to get re-familiarized. Okay.
We both talked about this before we started recording. We're not sure either one of us are very good to talk about this subject, but stepping away, well, actually first coming back to paragliding after being away from it, you've had this shoulder injury, but you haven't come back yet. So, but any thoughts on that?
Flying Karlis (23:54.879)
Well, I did a bit of a, a break for quite a while after my reserve throw, because that took me a while to figure out what I want to do next. And, cause I got lucky. I walked away from it, but it wasn't because of my skill. got lucky. That, that I like to overthink things anyway. So that took me a while to process. And the first thing I did is I took a, yeah, well, epic. So it's a low B basically, a knee and a wing.
Gavin McClurg (24:01.567)
Alright
Flying Karlis (24:24.788)
instead of the two-liner and I ground-hunted for a while before I even launched and I went on a calm day instead of a full blast day and short flights and gradually increasing and so I stepped what is that how many classes is that but it's not only the class it's also small aspect going from the two-liner don't remember what the peak fall was but epic is very small so comparingly
For me, was coming back, especially after mental or physical trauma, at least for me, the goal was to take it easy. And before even any big cross-country, because the first season I barely flew any and every time I was near Terra and I was nervous, so I spent the whole winter hiking, flying top to bottoms to do active piloting. And for me, simple backflying was terrifying.
And some days I couldn't do it sometimes. So I went for simple three sixties or wingovers or something that I was more comfortable with. And that took me months and months and months to get comfortable. Again, it's a mental trauma. I didn't have the physical. And so I think first don't. Don't if it is after incident or accident, take your time.
Gavin McClurg (25:42.639)
think first don't, if it is after incident or accident, take your time. We all are different, we have different ways how to deal with these things. And don't beat yourself up if it feels scary the first time you're going and you don't have to take off. And just because you got to the take off.
Flying Karlis (25:51.023)
We all are different. We have different ways how to deal with these things. And don't beat yourself up if it feels scary the first time you're going and you don't have to take off. And just because you got to the takeoff. It's a process. The slower you take it, the less likely you get scared again. Because the first, I don't know, probably a year was really difficult for me to fly in thermo care close to terrain because I was just...
Gavin McClurg (26:15.342)
Wow.
Flying Karlis (26:19.856)
noticing that my heart rate goes up and getting tense, all the things that never happened to me before. I didn't know what it means to be scared of flying till I threw my reserve. And the whole process took three years till I got back to comfortable. And now we'll see, because it's another three months that I'm off. So, and I just, what is it, a year ago, got good at it mentally. So this is going to be interesting. Ask me once I start flying how that went.
But the process and I support I mean without the people in my life that helped me with all the process this is not it's not a sport to do alone. We'd fly alone. We should not love definitely not be alone when we're recovering from physical and mental traumas. The more people that care for you is around you and support you in that whole thing and not beat you around the
head for not flying again, because it's not easy once you get properly scared. At least not for me. Everybody's different as always. So yeah, would say take your time would be the best advice and don't be too harsh on yourself. The best advice I got during that process, I think that I used the most is that talk to yourself as you would talk to a 10 year old kid.
Gavin McClurg (27:24.93)
Yeah.
Gavin McClurg (27:36.834)
Mm.
Flying Karlis (27:47.957)
So imagine that you're talking to your 10 year old Gavin, not the adult that you are today. You would not be nearly as strict as you are to yourself as an adult. That helped me a lot to talk to myself as a 10 year old. was a simple trick, but it worked.
Gavin McClurg (27:55.015)
as as you are to yourself as an adult. That helped me a lot. Talk to myself as a 10 year old.
That's a great trick. This leads us to the next one, which I really like this question because it's something I have thought about a lot. don't...
No, I'm glad you're the one that has to answer it though, not me. Stepping away from paragliding, what's on the other side? And like I said, neither one of us have done that, but what do you think about, I mean, it's interesting, isn't it? We see people come and go in this sport a lot. Often people who are really addicted and really doing well, and then you see it in competitions, suddenly, hey, so-and-so's not showing up anymore.
Flying Karlis (28:23.644)
I... I have no idea.
Gavin McClurg (28:42.402)
But I don't know if I can answer the question.
Flying Karlis (28:44.275)
I don't think I'm the right person to answer. I don't have a plan B. I have plans for the next decade or two of what to do, but stepping away is not an option. So I don't have a plan B for that. don't think there's somebody better than you and I to answer this question.
Gavin McClurg (29:02.946)
Yeah, I mean, I guess what we can talk about a bit is just the concept of it because it's, think in any professional sport or just recreational sport, you're...
at some point you could age out. We see people participate in this well into their 80s, which is awesome. But knowing that you're getting more fragile, for sure, and being a lot more careful, I guess, with the whole physical side of things is smart. But I think it's hard to have something that kind of defines who you are.
Flying Karlis (29:36.405)
Yeah, and as Bruce had a cross-country magazine article some years ago, Bruce turning 60 saying that by the time we're 80, we're all going to fly ENAs, which is based on research that timing, reaction timing goes away for all of us. And for me, that's another 40 years to go. So that feels really far in the future. But yeah, I...
I will be flying ENAs in my 80s, that's the goal. But I still don't see myself fully going away from the sport. Even if I can't fly, I'll still be involved in organizing things or helping with some research to build better, safer equipment in some shape or form, which will get to the rescue parts. So I have a lot of ideas there.
I mean, now organizing competitions, I have so many new ideas how to improve safety from our last talk to this one. have a lot of news on that topic, which is the whole thing. Another podcast we need just on that. My mind is fully, like, that's all I think about basically. And so even if I can't fly, there will be still things that I'll be. And this sport is so, so diverse and there's so many things to still learn that I
Gavin McClurg (30:39.938)
Mm. Mm.
Gavin McClurg (30:44.45)
Yeah.
Flying Karlis (31:01.566)
There's nothing quite as intriguing for me in life or as complex that I would like to keep on learning and improving. Yeah, for me, this is it basically.
Gavin McClurg (31:15.431)
So the answer is don't step away folks. Okay well that does lead us to the next one that's, you know we covered SIV quite a bit on your first show so if you want to know a deeper dive on SIV go listen to the first one we did with Carlos and we've done another number of shows, Malin and a bunch of others, Jockey on SIV but the question was a more practical discussion.
Flying Karlis (31:18.004)
Exactly.
Gavin McClurg (31:41.967)
about SIV, so I'd like to know even what that means to you, but also practicing maneuvers outside of SIV. I'm really curious to hear your thoughts on this because that is something I've always struggled with. I can get in an SIV and do 25 stalls in a flight, just over and over and just without thinking and love it, and I've just done a ton of stalls. But when I go to just flying,
and a perfectly good place, not over the water, not with an instructor or that kind of thing, where I should just be doing a ton of stalls, it's always more nerve wracking. I have to force myself to do it because it's just, I don't feel like I'm in that kind of quote unquote controlled environment. So, know, A, what should we be doing outside of SIV on a regular basis? know, big wing overs or what? What should we be doing? you know, should we just be doing
stalls all the time if we're comfortable with it.
Flying Karlis (32:42.91)
Yeah. to me, which is not good for my business, but you should do as many saves as you need to, a point you don't need them. And that is related to the question that you have to practice yourself. so what I recommend, if you are not comfortable going yourself, you do a refresher calls, you do like a three day thing, you stay, I do it in like guard. So you stay in like God for another week.
Gavin McClurg (32:53.292)
Mm.
Flying Karlis (33:11.836)
and you knock it out or a couple of days, whatever you can logistically do and do the same. Cause you're now fresh off the course. Then you can practice without the instructor in your year. Cause that's a very different sensation by yourself. You know, see what you can do. Then ideally come back to the same course and polish things to the next level. And then after that, you can do some more things over water in safe environment.
But as soon as you can, after the calls, while it's all fresh in your head, go knock out a few stalls over ground. If they went well over water, if you're feeling like you're in, like you said, you know, you've done 25 or, and you're feeling in control over water, the sooner the better. Cause the, the uncomfortable thing you're talking about, that's just mental. And if you, and the longer you wait and wait and wait, the skill goes away, physical as well. But if you do it straight after.
Gavin McClurg (33:57.743)
The uncomfortable thing you're talking about is that's just mental. And the longer you wait and wait and wait, the skill goes away, physical as well. But if you do it straight after, then you still have the physical skill. You just did it a couple days ago.
Flying Karlis (34:08.53)
then you still have the physical skill. You just did it a couple of days ago, so there's no reason you can't do it overrun. And I wouldn't also recommend doing your first on the high aspect thing, do it on the lower aspect, that's of course helps. And the reason going, you, because this is for pilots who don't have their own active piloting yet, so the first is just to have a nice instruction, so you're in good, safe environment to get everything going.
Gavin McClurg (34:16.686)
also recommend doing your first on the highest aspect ring, do it on the lower aspect.
Flying Karlis (34:36.392)
And whatever, it doesn't matter if that's the stalls or it's rotations or asymmetrics, frontals, autorotations, whatever level you got through the course, you practice that without the instructor and then come back, move forward or otherwise, and then go on your own. That would be in my head, the ideal thing, because you have instructor, no instructor, instructor, and then you go off for yourself. And I think with good instructions and with a B wing classes, C's depends on the pilot.
Gavin McClurg (34:58.414)
for yourself. And I think with good instructions and with a B wing classes, C depends on the pilot because the higher aspect wings is more...
Flying Karlis (35:05.52)
because the higher aspect wings is more technical, bit more precise, but the A's and B's are less precision needed and they're more forgiving. So on the B wing, if you do sieve a couple of days off on the sieve, I'm pretty comfortable that at most pilots I will be able to get that you can do it comfortably over ground if in that schedule, because you can knock out a lot of repetition in those courses and doing it yourself is the key.
Gavin McClurg (35:11.854)
B's and B's are less precision needed and they're more forgiving. So on the B wing, if you do save a couple days off on the serve, you are pretty comfortable with most pilots that you can get that you can do it.
Gavin McClurg (35:32.526)
in those courses and doing it yourself is the key. And to me, that once a year, Civ course or once in a new wing and all that, if anything that is false confidence builder, we have to practice it. We can't just do once a year and then hope that...
Flying Karlis (35:35.717)
And to me, that once a year, Civ course, or once in a new wing and all that, if anything, that is a false confidence builder, we have to practice it. We can't just do one Civ and then hope that several months down the road when the asymmetric happens in a while, that that actually going to help you. And so yes, as much as you, the moment you have a height,
Gavin McClurg (35:58.735)
help you.
Flying Karlis (36:05.216)
360s, rapid exits with raw control, work on that, that you can do and don't need that much altitude. Backflies, the higher the better, just in case you make a mistake. And the more you do them, the better. I mean, I do them every flight. If I guided, if I waited the cloud base for a student, I'll do a heli or backfly or something to come down instead of spiraling or heli down. If I do a long cross country,
I usually try to climb high before landing so I can do some maneuvers tired. It's more likely than not I'll lose my wing tired. So I want to practice tired. So I build muscle memory and that it's constantly, there's not a flight that I haven't done some misty or spinny thingy, something playful. It doesn't have to be backfly. Most things starts with spinning the wing or it doesn't have to be negative. It's like fully negative backfly. But something that you...
Gavin McClurg (37:00.462)
Something that you, once you get comfortable at it, you need to practice it to keep being comfortable about it.
Flying Karlis (37:01.904)
Once you get comfortable at it, you need to practice it to keep being comfortable about it.
Does that answer the question?
Flying Karlis (37:29.652)
All right, I have a personal story too. Maybe that helps pilots is I learned all the cross-country flying with Bruce Goldsmith being part of the company and Bruce, there's also YouTube videos about it nowadays is he likes that you fly hands up as much as possible. You use the brakes as little as needed to achieve what you need. And then before I supported Theo, went to fly together and he flew with deep brakes on.
I'm like both brakes on and a lot of brakes and inner thermal. And I flew no brakes on in the thermal and we climbed the same. I was like, how does that work? When I asked Theo, he's like, well, that's how he flies. And then during the X-UPS, I asked Tony Bender, because it's what does he thinks about these different techniques?
didn't make sense to me that one can go hands up and the other one is deep in and we climb at the same speed. And Tony likes to fly opposite. He likes to fly deep breaks in and the core real tight and slow down the wing. And Bruce and Tony are two legends in this sport and I can't just ignore one and listen to the other. So that really made a mess in my mind because I know that both of them are right. And so it took me years and I'm still working on it.
And I think it's just matter of using the right technique for the right conditions. And there might be something to do with wing designs as well. Because Bruce designed his wings in certain way, Tony has been test pilot for Novot, so I assume that there's a preference each designer or test pilots how they like their wings. But then again, and I'm sure you fly with little bit of breaks and a lot of breaks depending on the conditions.
What I'm trying to say is don't be afraid to experiment. To me, there's no right or wrong way really how to thermal. What I've learned listening to a lot of different pilots, as long as when you do climb, everybody else is not out climbing you, that's a good way to climb.
Gavin McClurg (39:27.214)
To me, there's no right or wrong way really how to...
Flying Karlis (39:43.73)
How exactly? Everybody has their own little bit of style. It depends on wings and the weight, the loadage. There's a lot of things. Win, no win. So to me, there's no right or wrong way. You have to find the balance between the two worlds.
For windy, light, bubbly stuff, yes, hands up, C or B control. Most cases will be better than a lot of brakes on, especially if you're going into an, if it's a screamer, yeah, both brakes on and bank it in and grab it. Yeah, most likely than not, that's going to be better than hands up or little brake. And then there's everything in between the two worlds. It's not easy, thermolink.
Gavin McClurg (40:24.212)
everything in between the two worlds. It's not easy. And that's I love about it. Every day is different.
Flying Karlis (40:29.589)
And that's what I love about it. Every day is different, every thermal is different, and you have to adapt to it.
Gavin McClurg (40:35.31)
There's a real art that I'm noticing at the World Cup level with the folks that are very frequently in the top 10. They have a move at the top of every climb that I really am puzzled. Sometimes I get it, sometimes I don't, but they'll come out 10 meters above everybody else.
You know, they'll just they'll just do a little bit of a turn, a spin. I've been told that sometimes, you know, and again, it's it's very pilot specific. There are pilots who won't use their inside brake, especially at the top of the climb. They'll go back and they'll just do a little tweak with their bees. You know, so it's but it what I will say is there's a very there's a very fine and quite sexy art to exiting the thermal that.
spills you out above, if you're in a big gaggle, that extra 10, 15 meters really adds up over the course of the race. And they're then in the most dominant commanding position and everybody is working for them.
You're not the tool of everybody else then. You're on top of the gaggle. It's a very easy place to be in competition. When you're in that position, you don't have to think. You don't have to do much. I would say, as you're getting better at climbing, the beginning is just try to climb with the others. But as you're really getting better, especially if you start getting into racing, work on these little bits here and there that can make a big difference.
Flying Karlis (41:56.21)
Yeah, there's some
Flying Karlis (42:19.316)
Yeah, there was a research done a couple of years back, I think. And they put all the sensors and all that and the difference between the top 10 and the rest of the pack, was, it's just basically precision. The fine-tuned detail was the difference. If you just look at it, I feel it doesn't look much different, but there's really tiny details. For the exiting, I...
a while but I looked into sailplanes. They have strategies for this. So there's something, you know, looking to sailplane piloting, it's a bit different but there's strategies. For me, I don't feel like I'm there yet. that's sort of, I'll leave it for later for myself to figure that out. I'm not really competing myself. I actually organize these days more than I compete. it's, yeah, I've noticed that as well. It's incredible what they are doing and the fine detail is...
Yeah, I'm not there yet.
Gavin McClurg (43:19.384)
Yeah, that's down in that half a 1 % kind of thing. You said you had some good thoughts on this, how to forecast better. Our sport is so dependent on this. We've seen these big triangles going down the last few days in the Alps. The huge one is just what launch to be on, what time. So how to forecast better. What are your thoughts on that?
Flying Karlis (43:46.405)
It's really the easiest is hire somebody. It's like, I'm serious. I have a mentor for eight years that's been obsessed about Meteor for, since he was 10 years old. So he's now mid fifties. So 45 years every single day checking Meteor since he was a 10 year old kid. I can't beat that. I, so for all the events or courses, everything I do, he does the forecasting for me.
Gavin McClurg (43:51.424)
Hahaha
Flying Karlis (44:16.308)
because there's levels and I'm three and a half decades behind him in experience and knowledge. And all these big days, there's a bunch of highly experienced people in the area and in the Meteor that as a pack they come together and figure out the days. Most of the big days are done in a not gaggle necessarily, but there's a whole group of people behind the scenes making all and chatting with each other and...
Gavin McClurg (44:22.549)
Yeah.
Gavin McClurg (44:37.358)
Group setting.
Flying Karlis (44:45.268)
It's not one guy. I think that's what maybe should be talked more about because it's, you know, you see a track log of one guy winning or getting the flight. There's usually another four or five track logs following him and they fly together, they plan together. Find somebody that is better than you and ask a lot of questions. really, because Matthew,
Gavin McClurg (44:56.11)
Very close, yep.
Flying Karlis (45:09.938)
I used to give some simple rules of thumb, it's just, meteorology, micro meteorology, which we use for flying is incredibly detailed. And there's so many things that affect it, but there's no simple rule really, especially for these days. Again, we had heat, we had dry, we had mistroll before. So there are some things that affects mistrolling brings dry cold air, heat helps, high base.
Gavin McClurg (45:26.306)
Hmm
Flying Karlis (45:38.506)
There are no wind or less like the meteor wind wasn't much. So there are some bullet points for that. And we have more and more apps that work and don't depending on the place and time. forecasting is incredibly difficult to be super accurate, I think personally. But maybe I, my reference is to too high because my mentor is incredibly good at what he does.
Gavin McClurg (45:53.219)
Yeah, so forecasting is incredibly difficult to be super accurate, I think.
Flying Karlis (46:08.305)
and so I'm comparing myself to him and I don't think I'm very good comparing to him.
Gavin McClurg (46:12.958)
Yeah, it's easy to offload that too. mean, I have the same, my supporter in the last couple of races, Revus, he just really tweaks out on weather. And so it's easier for me to just get my kit ready and do what he tells me to do. I'm never going to understand it at his level. I don't have 50 tabs open to every possible thing that you're looking at. What I would say about forecasting that has taken me
quite a long time to learn and continue to learn is that models are models and they're all doing a better and better job all the time. And they have incredible, know, these apps have incredible, you know, SkySight and XC skies and Medioblu, they're all getting better all the time. They're always adding layers that really help us. What I would say though is, you know, the more we get tied
to the forecast, less, in some cases, the less well we fly. We get totally sorted in on this is what I'm doing with this day and we forget to be pilots and follow the sky. mean, again, what the models do a very poor job of accounting for is that micro side of things. This slope getting a little more heat at this time of the day, this is not something that the models can resolve.
are not very well anyway. And so, you know, we, we, think we have to be remain flexible. You know, this could be a day that you're, you're going to go to cold, it was art and do a 300 KFA I, and maybe that works out, but maybe six hours into the day, something has changed, something you hadn't anticipated. And you just keep beating your head against the wall, trying to do what you planned on doing rather than what the day is giving you.
Flying Karlis (48:05.919)
Yeah, fly today, not the forecast.
Gavin McClurg (48:08.3)
Yeah, yeah, and that can be hard to switch. I find that in racing, we always talk about how important it is to shift gears and fly the day. if you don't, you're on the deck and you lose. But I think we have to remember that with forecasting as well. Sometimes it's...
Flying Karlis (48:31.102)
I think.
Another thing about forecasting is what I've noticed is people don't necessarily pay attention what's going on now. When you leave the house, drive to the mountain, there's a lot of information in clouds above you. And I think to us, forecasting is nice to plan the big fights. And to your point about adapting to the day, now that I'm running events and when I, you know, we have a briefing.
let's say 12 o'clock or whatever, 11.30 and then we have another half an hour later, people often don't notice the changes in the air around them. From the moment we arrived on takeoff to the, you know, it usually takes a couple of hours for people to start flying. And it's the same in the courses, that's even longer period, you know, from the morning briefing till the actual takeoff. I think there's an art to it. because we're not
pilots only on take-offs, so we can observe it from the office window and wherever driving on the highway. The next hour or two is quite predictable just from what you see, if you know what you're looking at and how to read it. And there's quite a lot of books for that, how to read the actual cloud and what they tell you and the winds and all that. And I think that would be something really valuable to pay more attention to.
Because then when you fly, you see something you can, OK, that doesn't look good because maybe in two hours we're going to have a shower there. Maybe I should go other direction and try other route.
Gavin McClurg (50:08.61)
Yeah.
Yeah, Carlos, I'm mindful of our time here and I really want to hear what you have to say about reserves. So let's skip gliding because that is an incredibly complicated topic. I'd like to hear briefly your thoughts on everyday speed bar use. And then let's get into this interesting one, mitigating the testosterone driven decision making afflicting our sport. I can't wait to hear your thoughts on that. So speed bar and testosterone.
Flying Karlis (50:40.917)
Speed bar, for me, the moment I leave thermal I'm on bar. First for sure, so 50, 60%. That's where I fly it at. And I rarely go over 80 because I'm not racing, I'm not doing competition flying. And even in cross country, I only go over 80. If I'm in a really bad sink or least I had somewhere pinned down, then I'll use the 100 % of the wing. Otherwise, 50 to 80 is my...
where I play and then the controls goes on the Bs or Cs depending on which wing you fly as much as possible. And you're supposed to these days with especially with the loop through Bs and C connections so you have a better control of the wing or the two liners that you just lock in the whichever step you're on and keep your feet there and just control with these. The wings fly well these days the two liners especially that you can
have a lot of control, can slow down your speed by changing angle of attack chest and the bees and there's a lot you can do with it. I'm still nervous with that technique, especially when I go 80%. I often step down to 50 to do the same. don't, but that's me. I don't like to push limits. don't like to, you know, I enjoy flying, but I don't care about racing. So, but yeah, for me, speed bar.
The moment you're not thermaling, it's bar zone at least 50, 60%, especially into wind. Downwind, still most wings will fly better up to 30 % for glide efficiency. And if you put a polar curve and then trim speed is more efficient, but that's in perfectly calm air that we don't fly in. And the speed bar helps cutting out through any kind of bubbles and things so you don't slow down.
pitch back, go forward. That's where the inefficiency come. That's where the speed bar helps you cut through there better. So yes, you have theoretically more sync because you're accelerated the wing, but you cut through there better. So you gain more glide that way. So for me, out of the thermal, first step, second step, if I'm pushing it or, and yeah. So I have a wretched police that
Flying Karlis (53:06.621)
lock it in so I don't have to hold it because I'm on the bar non-stop. And to me this is not even racing. 50 to 80 percent of bar is not racing. It's just normal flying.
Gavin McClurg (53:12.11)
me, this is not even racing. 50 to 80 % of bars is not racing. It's just normal flying.
Flying Karlis (53:24.991)
Sorry.
Flying Karlis (53:35.477)
First thing that came to my mind when I heard that question Get a steady girlfriend
Gavin McClurg (53:42.261)
No.
Flying Karlis (53:45.493)
Seriously, I'm eight years in relationships. I'm a lot calmer today than I was eight years ago. Get a girlfriend,
Gavin McClurg (53:52.842)
There you go, there you go.
That's good advice.
Flying Karlis (54:00.214)
That's really I mean you can do you know talk about meditation go for a run or whatever like but for me that was my first thought
Gavin McClurg (54:14.028)
Yeah, I love it. love it. I think that and again, this is something we maybe we haven't tackled it exactly like that question, but we've talked about quite a bit on the show. I'll use the X-Obs as an example, you know, and this was supposed to be a show that not that specifically does not talk about the X-Obs because I cover it so much. But, you know, there was a lot of chatter this year about the risks and that these are gladiators and not adventure race and the whole thing. And
Flying Karlis (54:16.03)
You
Gavin McClurg (54:43.694)
I saw comments on Instagram one day where I was doing something and what I hate, this was the comment, what I hate is that these exceptional pilots are setting an example and showing what normal people shouldn't do. And that to me is not giving a lot of credit to people. If you think...
you can watch Kregel taking off in 50 kilometers an hour wind and think, yeah, I've got that move, then you're not long for this world anyway. know, you're, Darwin's gonna come and get you. And so, I mean, to me, it's just, we cannot be lemmings in this sport and we're different one day to the next and how hydrated and how rested and the whole thing and how current and all the things you talked about. And so, you know, that's just, in a sense, I find that
Flying Karlis (55:37.141)
Yeah.
Gavin McClurg (55:38.038)
that argument kind of ridiculous, you know, that there's just a huge range of ability here and there always will be. And you you can't watch somebody in the X-Alps in a really strong, fern day and go, yeah, yeah, that seems reasonable. I mean, it's not, but it is for them.
Flying Karlis (55:40.585)
Well, I compare, cause we-
Flying Karlis (55:55.031)
Um, it's, um, we had the same conversations. course, everybody talked about this year's Excel, all the wins and all the rest of it. We have the motorbike race, the man of ales or aisles where they go 300 Ks an hour on Aluminum. Well, what are you going to think that you can do the same on your motorbike? They're not setting an example. They're showing what the motorbike can do and what the
Gavin McClurg (56:08.878)
Yeah, Isle of Man.
Flying Karlis (56:24.086)
incredibly skilled racer can do and in that race there's pretty much every year somebody wipes out and it's accepted and we have no issue with that. So for me it's you go there, you've been in the race, it's your choice, what risk levels you're gonna take, it's up to you. It's none of my business to tell you Gavin, yeah, no, don't go in that. If you're comfortable, you wanna do that, it's up to you. And to me,
The race is yeah, they tough and one of the reasons because I've been thinking about competing years ago, not anymore. Like I saw what you guys do is like, yeah, that's way out of my comfort level and that's fine. There's nothing wrong with that. And there's nothing wrong with people taking off with that if they choose to. I, you know, as long as you don't put anybody else in danger, which they don't, know, solo pilots flying themselves. have this argument is, I mean, we have
plenty of things that people do in this world and we let them and why we should accept we any different and just because they're doing it yeah as you said doesn't mean that somebody who just learned that you can do the same it's also decades and decades of you know and thousands of hours of practice it's not something these are not beginner pilots by any means
Gavin McClurg (57:42.723)
Yeah, yeah. There you go. All right, well said. Okay, reserves. You are a reserve expert, so that was the first part of this. All about reserves from a reserve expert. So the round versus square versus regalo, lightweight versus regular weight, how to decide the actual right size, actual lifespan of reserves, blah, blah. This is a long question, you know it all. I know you've got some thoughts.
Flying Karlis (58:09.747)
Right, let's start with simplest between round, squared or regalo. Most round rescues has a pendulum instability built into the system, right? So you, if you are at the weight range that is certified out, it should be quite pendulum stable, but the way the system is with a bit of air moving, the rescue will start penduling you. And so that's not a good thing. So if you
close to the ground with a swing that adds to your speed. Where the square, diamonds or regalos don't have that. They are very pendulum stable. So for that simple reason for me it's square or regalo. If you're over water, not a big deal. You can take a small round for quick opening. But if you're flying over terrain it's square, diamond or triangle. Because it's just the pendulum alone is a big difference.
and I've gotten lucky a few times because of pendulum. I have a YouTube video talking about the pendulum thing and how to deal with it. Then for sizes, because the test is accepted up to minus 5.5 meters a second, which is fast. And the difference is between, I mean, you'll survive and you'll be all right, but you might break an ankle or leg. So I recommend pilots to go take a reserved
mean, Theo de Blayke recommends up to 40%. So I usually say 20 to 30, 40 as well depending on... And that you can do with squared or regalo, but you can't do with round. The lighter you are on the round, the bigger the pendulum issue. So that's why squared and rounds and... So that's yeah, take a bigger size than you need. For regalos, the triangle ones...
It's quite a complex thing to get it flying and get your wing and you most likely the nut gonna be twisted when you throw it. So that's something people... Yes, you can steer it once you get to the steering bit. But there's a lot of things to do before to get to the... Because you have your main canopy, you're probably twisted on regalo. Because as you throw, no matter how nicely you pack it and put it in your harness, as you throw it, it will rotate and more often than not it will...
Flying Karlis (01:00:37.737)
just twist itself up, just the risers, not the whole thing. It will open nicely. Ragalos, the beamers, they're really nicely packed, double opening, quicker openings, so they are factory designed really nicely for that, but they will come out twisted more often than not. So you have to deal with your main canopy and twist the Ragalo before you can start steering. It's a bit advanced. If it's your only reserve, I wouldn't recommend the Ragalo.
As a secondary, amazing, go for it. So for a single rescue, diamond or squared is a better option in my opinion, because you throw it, it's simpler to open and some of them are semi-steerable as well. Varigolos is great for acrobatics or as a secondary. If you're high, you throw it, you have time. But most of our flying in the cross-country is in the red zone, sort of, right? Close to terrain that we have short time to react.
and we need to throw quick and fast. And we want them to open fast. As far as lifespan, well, the manufacturer recommended is 10 years. Rescue doesn't really, I mean, there's also insurance issue for that. You shouldn't have older because insurance companies won't cover you there. I mean, my first reserve was 25 or 30 years old, still worked.
I'm not recommending that, don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that. I changed mine, I think all this reserve I had recently was eight years and was changed this season. I keep them fresh just because if I need to use it, it's better worked. And so for me, I don't leave anything to the chance and know, reserves are not that expensive. If you keep them for eight years, you might as well switch it out. I like to switch them out before the deadline, sort of.
Gavin McClurg (01:02:04.279)
You
Flying Karlis (01:02:30.845)
have a margin. That doesn't mean they won't work. It depends also if you have a lot of sand and things, depends where you're flying, what environment the rescue has lived. I live in fronts and alps, we don't have those issues. There's different philosophies about how many times the reserve can go in the water before it's deemed not airworthy. I think it was...
API, IF memory serves, you can look that up, but I think it was 25 times in water before you should switch your reserve, for example. So there's a lot of different ideas. I don't know how many of them are based in research. Also, what I'm going to talk about packing the reserves itself, it's not done in the research. It's currently anecdotal evidence that's based on what I've seen.
and experimented myself and what I've seen in sieves and YouTube videos and my own experience with the reserve throws, which I have about 13 at the moment, rescue throws.
Yeah, so the biggest really consideration for so the square, the regalo, that's clear. The next big thing which I would recommend pilots to look at before you decide to buy a rescue, look at the manual, what the manual say, how to pack the reserve. We have a reserve test, the endurance test is a vertical drop at 40 meters a second, if I'm not mistaken exactly the numbers, shock opening.
So the rescue has to withstand 40 meters a second freefall-ish before it opens. And the calculation is that if you lose both carabiners at the same time or you lose the whole line set and you have a bit of a freefall by the time you react, pull, throw. So the calculation was something like 36-38 meters a second from memory. This is all EN certification is written down. And so the test has put with a margin, which is normal procedure for testing things.
Flying Karlis (01:04:37.337)
And because of that, especially lighter reserves, they are packed slower to withstand the test. So they can come to the market and we want light stuff. As we talked about harnesses, there are trade-offs. And in reserves as well, lot of light reserves are packed for slower open... The canopy itself is packed to open slower.
And something like Rogalo, for example, there's quite a few reserves that are packed for quick opening, quicker opening. I don't know them all. I know that the Rogalos are packed that way and they open really fast because of it. So that's really important before you buy one to see what the manual say, how you're supposed to pack by the manufacturer. And that will show you if it's fast or slow.
The way you want to see it is that basically the rescue should have as many opening options from any side. So if you make this sort of square when you pack the rescue, when it's fully open and the cells are on both sides, ideally you want to make an S horizontally and then you have the long S-E or W thing stretched out, that should be S as well, kind of snaky thingy. That way you have been
catching it from any direction. And then you can, and you want to have the air intake as messy as possible where the lines come out. Because if you imagine a rescue pack like with a nice iron t-shirt, shirt, it's nice and neat, the air can't get in there. And it flows around and that doesn't open it. But if you have a messy air opening, it will help it open. And there's a lot of reserves these days that are packed on itself.
So when you open it square, sort of square, when you have cells separated 50 % to each side, the first folds go on itself, sort of goes in and then a couple times even sometimes. And the leading edge or the place where the air gonna take the rescue first near the lines coming out is even folded inside in a triangle shape, making it very nicely aerodynamic shape on one side of the reserve.
Flying Karlis (01:07:00.341)
where other side will open if the wind comes from that side. But the folded on the self side has no way for wind to grab anything. It will fly like any wing sort of. You can have a look at some of the videos YouTube. You see the rescue is kind of floating and not opening. You have the sausage, the white sausage and it's floating till it hits something and then it starts untangling but it's usually already in the lines. So that's... It's done.
know, the market wants lighter things and the certification tests are done in a way to protect pilots in case we have a catastrophic failure of our gear. there's a... It's a tricky... And currently this is just an opinion. There's no research done. So I'm not trying to bash anybody here. It's just something to consider when you choose your gear and the manuals you can find them online. They are all available before you buy.
and have a look how it's packed and if that suits your flying style.
If that makes sense. Usually I fold a piece of paper to show it, so it's tricky to explain verbally.
Gavin McClurg (01:08:07.694)
Yeah.
Yeah, right. I should have you do that. We'll put out the video portion of this. Explain further what it should, what you would like it to look like for air to get it on both sides.
Flying Karlis (01:08:27.541)
Yeah, so this is just the canopy part. There's also how we put the lines in, but the canopy part itself, before you actually start folding the rescue, you go through the cells. You count the cells, make sure they're made, and then you put them equally on both sides. You have 50 % on one side, 50 % on the other side. That's kind of sort of a rectangle thing, depending on the rescue.
Ragalos are packed a bit differently than the squared ones or round ones with variations of course and then from that rectangle thingy you want to have basically an S or W so it follows through so nothing is folded on itself, but it's You kind of bend one under then all the way over halfway back over so then you have a S or W's and that way you have
Gavin McClurg (01:09:17.378)
Yeah.
Gavin McClurg (01:09:21.76)
One over. Yeah.
Flying Karlis (01:09:27.401)
sort of those dips on both sides for the long vertical sausage. So the wind comes from both sides and then the rescue can be opened by the wind no matter which direction it's thrown. And it's this... the folding... when it's a sausage it's usually an S in most packing these days. Some of them have the air intake or where the lines connect they fold it
Gavin McClurg (01:09:30.531)
Yep.
Flying Karlis (01:09:55.558)
inside and then for the rest of it on top which slows it down even more which basically for me you want that rescue to grab the air as easy as possible as fast as possible because mostly you're gonna throw it near terrain and personally for me I'll take the chance that because the likelihood of carabiners both of them failing and all of my lines going
really slim as long as you check your gear you change your carabiners sooner than needed because aluminium carabiners I would change every season or two still is longer but if you change your carabiners there's I mean gear doesn't fail that often anymore we don't have except if you overuse your carabiners or you never check your lines and different story but if you regularly check your gear
line set and you change the carabiners that likelihood is really really slim but the likelihood of us having an asymmetric and going for auto rotation close to terrain is a lot higher so for me it's a simple simple thing of math yes it's not as certified and i repack my own rescues to make them fast opening and because then they open quick i can't recommend this because that's there's reasons for that
Gavin McClurg (01:11:03.373)
Yep.
Flying Karlis (01:11:19.317)
But you can buy rescues that are packed for fast opening. And if you're informed, you can see what you're buying before you buy. And not always the lightest is the best for that. Because lighter material is weaker than strong. And on top of that, what I like to do is that once it's you close three... Imagine a simple four leaf reserve container.
You put the packed reserve in, you close three leaves and you close the first loop, rubbery bungee, with the lines that comes out of the reserve first. So you have your canopy closed and then you put all the rest of the lines in in a normal S shape. And with the lines that you leave about... The lines you leave out is roughly from your hip, your hand and another 40-ish centimeters.
and that's different from the hip, from the harness, from the first contact of the harness. Every harness is different where the first contact will be, right? And our arm lengths are different with each of us. So what I like to leave is your arm length plus about 40-50 centimeters. So you have time to throw, release and the rescue starts opening a bit away from you so it doesn't come tangling in into your harness and so it gives you a place to throw.
to have the strength to inertia. And by doing that, what I call double opening, is that you close the canopy, then you put all the lines in, you leave out as much needed for your body and close the loop with a second loop from the lines, if that makes sense, right? So when you throw, what happens is that you throw it out, the first will open the lines.
on the canopy, whatever weight it is, you give it inertia and it will fly away from you as much as the lines allow you to go and gravity will take over or whatever dynamic maneuvering you're doing or autorotation or whatever that will give some momentum to the reserve and once the line stretches out it will have a sort of a little shock back and that helps it pop and that gives it less likely to go in the lines
Flying Karlis (01:13:41.718)
Because the reserve will fall down, you know, and if you're in autorotation, autorotation you're not losing that much height, you're just rotating. And if you throw the reserve, it will go more down, away from the lines, and because it has inertia, it will pop and before it comes to the wing, it will be half inflated or more, and then it's not on the bigger... the likelihood of going into lines is a lot less.
If you have a slow opening or especially the on itself folded one where one side is aerodynamic, it can just hang as a sausage down there and not open and then eventually kind of float up to the lines and go in. Which YouTube is quite full of those video examples. Right, that it's a bit...
Gavin McClurg (01:14:27.04)
Yeah, now I'm getting it. So, you know, I can maybe be a little bit ruder than you are, than you want to be. What I'm gathering is that you're being very PC about this, but there's the manufacturers who have decided to cheat in a sense the certification process, and that's probably a strong word, are going for a slow opening. And it's in most cases for what we're...
what we are using them for, combat situations low to the ground where there's not a lot of margin, that's not probably ideal. We want a fast opening reserve. We don't need to throw anybody under the bus here, but we should do our research and go with reserves that open fast.
Flying Karlis (01:15:06.291)
Right.
Flying Karlis (01:15:15.487)
Alright, yeah, in a nutshell, I wouldn't say they cheat because the rules are they follow the rules and they follow the market. And we want light reserves. The test is that they have to withstand the falls. And it's something just to consider for pilots because in skydiving, they pack fast or slow depending how long they're going to free fall. They choose to do so. So, yeah.
Flying Karlis (01:15:43.861)
I choose to as a pilot myself, I want it as fast as possible because the likelihood that I'm gonna lose my lines or carabiners is very slim. I look after my gear and so yeah. It's... I should add that this is currently anecdotal evidence. I haven't done the research properly on it. I have limited data on this of course.
Gavin McClurg (01:16:06.232)
Mmm.
Gavin McClurg (01:16:09.848)
Mm-hmm.
Flying Karlis (01:16:10.036)
It's just my own Civ courses and from Acro community what I've seen when we train Acro.
I'm planning to gather a team to do a research because I think this is a really important thing and I see the difference in CSVSDA opening. I have my footage from that from the courses, but it's not enough to have a proper research. It's not scientific. There should be research done and I'm looking into...
Gavin McClurg (01:16:39.203)
Mm.
Flying Karlis (01:16:45.97)
finding time for it, resources and team to create a proper research to see what we can do about it to improve if there's improvement needed because I might be wrong.
Gavin McClurg (01:16:55.886)
Mm, mm, mm. I bet it's a good thing to be thinking about. I have one for you, and this is part of the question, but this has actually happened to me. And so, you may have heard the story, but before the 21 race, I think it was the 21 race, I mean literally two and a half weeks before, I was doing a full biv here, and I was quite heavy. I believe I was on my peak four.
and I had O2 and I had camping gear and the whole thing and I was basically just training for a few days and the last planned day of it took off broke a brake line in the taking off it was kind of a rocky not a great launch and I didn't have a lot of time to make it work my plan was to fly away from this little spine it was quite treed in front of me and there was a little treed canyon off to my left and if I didn't get a climb right away it felt like I would but if I didn't
I'd fly across this little canyon, top land, wait for it to turn on more, you know, kind of an X-Alps-y move. And didn't get the climb, started flying across the little canyon, less than a hundred meters, maybe just slightly over a hundred meters. When I looked at the track log, I was very, very low and got hit with some very weird air that I, you know, I wasn't seeing.
I didn't have access to weather. I was quite deep. There was no cell service or anything and there was some pretty latent Northwest wind. So I was down in the Lee, didn't notice that on the launch. I was kind of hidden from all that. anyway, something hit me, lost the wing quite violently and instantly went into an auto rotation and I did not have the time to deal. I'd done enough SIV that this is a reserve throw. It was instant. But as I went for it, actually,
lost the wing, went for the reserve and it was a front mount. I was at, know, X Alps gear. As I reached for it, went into an auto rotation, probably in the reach, right? And it kind of lost what control, what little control I had. And my SIV brain instantly went, uh-uh, you got to solve this, this auto rotation first. Cause you've only got the one reserve. If you throw it it goes into the wing, you're going to hit the deck and die. This was
Gavin McClurg (01:19:14.562)
This all happened obviously very, very, very fast. I was really low. So, of pulling, sorted the auto rotation and then through. Because when I sorted it, my wing was still a mess. But I stopped the auto rotation through and it was, mean, I was looking at, my God, I'm gonna break my back for sure. I mean, it literally popped and I hit the ground. I mean, so this was all really quick. But my very long question to you is,
This is something we learn in SIV all the time that normally this is how you throw. Reach down, hook it back. Except in an autorotation situation, you really wanna be mindful of throwing it at your feet, right? You wanna throw it down, you know, get it away from the lines. In reality, what should we be more worried about? What should we do? Should we just throw? Don't worry about the autorotation. If we have the time, sort the autorotation, then throw if it's still a mess.
What are you seeing in your SIV courses? What are you seeing in real time?
Flying Karlis (01:20:20.884)
The correct answer is what you did. Stop the autorotation, throw them. Because the autorotation will take the rescue nine times out of ten.
Gavin McClurg (01:20:31.533)
Really?
Flying Karlis (01:20:32.222)
Roughly. Yeah, I mean, slow opening, because it floats before it opens, because autorotation, you don't have energy. Like, you're not really... Like in a spiral, you throw any packing and it will just pop, because you have a lot of force coming to it. Autorotation... But it's... When it comes to this, all of the... It's good and well sitting here in front of a screen and chatting. It's a whole nother ballgame to...
Gavin McClurg (01:20:42.19)
Mm-hmm.
Gavin McClurg (01:21:00.941)
Yeah.
Flying Karlis (01:21:01.448)
And you were, your story, you were already very high level pilot to have that awareness, to have the controls like, yeah, now I need to fix this before I do that. Most people that you're in a panic state and the mind is not the same as we're sitting here and talking about it. So it's really tricky to say, yeah, fix it. At the same time, people might sieve themselves to the ground is the expression, right? The other extreme. So it's
Gavin McClurg (01:21:27.778)
Yeah.
Flying Karlis (01:21:31.796)
What I say, if in doubt, throw it. It's a simpler thing. It doesn't matter if you're 3000 meters above or 100, if in doubt, throw it. Because I'm considering the mental state of the person. Because it's not you and me chatting about it. You and I, there's experience and we can, know, our mind is a lot calmer than a couple hundred hour pilot going through the same thing. It's not the same person we're considering. So any...
Gavin McClurg (01:21:45.667)
Yeah.
Flying Karlis (01:22:00.159)
Throwing down, throwing left or right or up or all that, you need to be aware where the down is. What I say throw as hard, as strong as you can, like your life depends on it. All the directional bit, if you can, you want to throw it away from the wing. Away from the lines, wherever that is. If you have the awareness...
Gavin McClurg (01:22:06.627)
Yeah.
Gavin McClurg (01:22:15.758)
Because it does.
Gavin McClurg (01:22:22.978)
That's a better way to think about that. So not necessarily at your feet, because in auto rotation you can go just away from the wing. Yeah, of course.
Flying Karlis (01:22:30.868)
Depends where your feet are, yeah. Away from it. And autorotation, it's rotating to one side. So you want to ideally throw it right behind the wing. So the wing takes the most time to do a 360. But that's, it's a big ask for somebody that doesn't have regular training or thrown a bunch of reserves or, you know, been in those situations. This is where, brings us back to the earlier topic about CIVs. You should train it yourself.
You shouldn't rely on sieves. I mean you do as many as you need till you're to a point so you don't need them anymore. It's really bad for sieve instructors and myself who teach in sieves but really for me that's the goal. I don't want you to come to my courses for the next decade for sieve courses specifically. I want you not need me anymore. That's the goal. That's how I make the sport safer.
Gavin McClurg (01:23:25.078)
I mean, let's be, yeah, but let's be honest. How many people get to that level? You're talking a tiny fraction are really going to do over and over again what you're talking about. know, that's just, that's a special, that's a special pilot. That's not, it is the goal.
Flying Karlis (01:23:35.123)
Yes.
Flying Karlis (01:23:42.963)
Yeah, but it's... I mean, if you can't do that, yeah, that is the goal. if you don't fly enough, then it's all about adjusting to where you fly, conditions. And then a sieve, don't get me wrong, sieve is still very valuable. It's just... It shouldn't be thought of as, did a sieve, I'm good. Then I'm off to my merry way. It's just the beginning of a new adventure.
Gavin McClurg (01:23:58.436)
Yes.
Gavin McClurg (01:24:04.078)
No, no, no, no, this is the first of many. Something that has got, I'd like to hear your thoughts on this just briefly because now we are against the clock, but there are two things that do get people. One, well, first, reserves work. I've almost never seen something very bad come out of a reserve situation, but two things that do.
Flying Karlis (01:24:13.202)
That's more my point.
Gavin McClurg (01:24:33.582)
that can get people to an extent, down planing, and then with regalos going downwind. These are a couple of things. My experience is exactly what you've had. The one time I threw a regalo low, I didn't get even close to being able to, I didn't even have my main in my lap. I mean, was still dealing with my main when I hit the ground. I mean, wasn't, there was no chance to get to the controls. This takes time. So.
I do exactly what you said. I've got one hand is I've got plenty of height. The other hand is I'm low. know, my low is my square, my high is my regalo. But let's be honest, that's not always going to happen in combat. It's not always so clean like that. But what are what's the first thing you're thinking about when you throw? You've had 13, you said. What what what have you learned from those 13? What are the most important kind of sequence things? Again, if you've got time, if you're low, you don't have any time. You just hope for the best. But.
Flying Karlis (01:25:33.108)
Throwing a reserve is beginning of an adventure, not the end of all problems. So when you throw, you follow it. You do not let it out of your eyes and you be ready to pull on the lines. If it opens and pops, great. If it wants to float, you yank on that thing again, like your life depends on it. And as strong, as hard, as vicious as you can...
to get that thing open before it gets in your lines. Because if you have one, you don't have a second option. You have to get it open. And once the... No matter what the packing is, as long as it's stretched out and it's still not opening, you yank on that thing as fast as you can. You'll be full of adrenaline, you'll have power, no worries about that. But don't just throw it and forget about it. You want to follow it. That's first and most important really.
The 12 out of 13 was in Acro, so that's you prepared for it. In cross country I've had one in a sort of where you chilled relaxed doing well I had a nine meter a second thermal I wasn't quite relaxed. They woke me up. Altitude is the number one thing and but that's also when I fly distance is I my biggest number on the instrument is AGL.
I want to know exactly how high I am above what's under me so I know what time I got. So for me, AGL is the most important thing in paragliding. That translates in seconds or minutes depending how high I am. And the moment I'm under 400 meters AGL, is that? 1200 feetish, I'm very cautious of my altitude. What if I lose the wing now?
Gavin McClurg (01:27:05.006)
That's brilliant,
Gavin McClurg (01:27:13.56)
Yeah.
Flying Karlis (01:27:27.988)
So sort of, so this is, doesn't really, yeah, I'm very aware once I'm too close to the terrain, how much time I got. And then I do that nonstop. It doesn't matter if it's calm air or it's just a habit I've trained over the years, especially after. And the throw was, I was very aware where I was because that habit was before the rescue throw in first country that I did. And it's saved because it's...
Gavin McClurg (01:27:28.556)
Yep, just constantly asking yourself that.
Flying Karlis (01:27:53.565)
In acro also what I learned is that you're messing with the wing. To avoid sitting yourself in the ground, you have a mess of your wing and you're playing with it, you're trying to fix because your box you started 1000 meters above the ground and you constantly have a look. Playing with it, look altitude, altitude, altitude before you throw it. So that habit also comes from acro that you constantly check your height.
Because you can even have nice hellies and whatever and you're just burning altitude without realizing that you're too close to exit clean or... Altitude is something I check all the time. And for the rescue throw... I mean... I've had really bad ones where I just drop them. I've had the full power throws. I prefer full force. Follow it, yank on it. And even if you... Especially if it goes in your line...
yank as much as you can till it opens or you hit the ground, whichever comes first. Don't stop, because there's no other option. You have to keep going for that. For the down plane, that's a bit harder, depending. We had recently an event that I piloted through, a reserve and visually on the video it looks like
40 twists on the wing. Like the lines, so there's no... Sort of, yeah. Just a big rope. But I didn't see the incident, so I'm speculating. It's the sooner the better. So once your rescue is open, your next first thing to do is collect the wing. And no matter how big or strong you are or not, or the wing, the system between reserve and
Gavin McClurg (01:29:21.25)
Whoa. It was a rope.
Flying Karlis (01:29:49.077)
Paraglider is pulsating, it's never static. Air is moving, the wing is flapping, the rescue is moving in there. One or the other is taking power. You need to pay attention which one is which. Once you feel your reserve taking the load, that's when you pull in the wing as much as you can. The moment the wing wants to load, you lock your hands. Ideally, elbows near your body, friction, shoulder, elbow 90 degrees.
Lock it as close to your body as you can. Physically it's easier for human to lock at the 90 degree close to body then stretched out. So we're stronger closer to our core. Lock it. Don't let the wing pull your hands out as much as you can. Once the rescue takes it again, pull in more and repeat the process till you get the whole wing. In this case the reason I mentioned the rope is because it's one long thing so you can't just grab asymmetric and asymmetric is easier.
If you grab one riser, you kind of deflate and you give a place for air to move out. So if you pull one side brake, you'll spin it or heli it or whatever, but it will... It's easier to spin a wing than a stall wing, if that makes sense. Because the air mass has somewhere to go. So you're not just symmetrically pushing it out, you're asymmetrically moving it on the other side. And so... Yeah, one side riser or the Cs or Bs or...
whatever you have on your wing, brakes work, but that's a lot of wrap and brakes work to a point because you can reach a point where the brake line splits up and might not be enough depending on the configuration. I recommend risers or the lines itself, if you can. All of this is if you can. There's a lot of, grab a ball, the risers, this and that, like sometimes you can't. I mean, the twist might be a meter above your head and you just can't reach it.
Gavin McClurg (01:31:35.331)
Yeah.
Gavin McClurg (01:31:40.631)
Yeah.
Flying Karlis (01:31:45.041)
It depends. But yeah. So to summarize, throw, keep your eyes on it. If it doesn't open, help it open and keep helping it open till you run out of time or it opens. Once it's open, your first priority is collect your wing. And I would even say if you manage and you got the wing in your lap, just about, let's say, five, three meters above impact.
release it. It gives a bit more drag and it won't have enough time to downplay. And it just... I mean the altitude is very... That's complete guess. I've done it a few times and it seemed to help. Again, this is my own personal experience. There's no research on this. But logically thinking the more mess you have, the more drag you have and you need some time for it to take effect.
Gavin McClurg (01:32:21.134)
down plane.
Gavin McClurg (01:32:30.574)
Mmm.
Gavin McClurg (01:32:35.276)
Makes sense though.
Gavin McClurg (01:32:41.154)
need some time for it to take effect.
Flying Karlis (01:32:43.102)
So I'm estimating about 3 to 5 meters is somewhere there. The bigger the mess above your head, the more drag. That's how my simple mind figures that out. Yeah. I think that's...
Gavin McClurg (01:32:59.374)
What's your thoughts, then we'll wrap this up, but what are your thoughts on throwing both reserves? This is something I've seen in competition quite a bit, because we all fly with two reserves now in comps. We've all got these big heavy harnesses and we've got two. And I've seen that happen a lot. I, you know what, I've never actually asked the pilot why they did it, but it's usually one of these from my...
Most of the time I'm just seeing them come down under two reserves. I haven't seen what caused it or why, but I'm assuming they throw one, don't like it in the lines, boom, just throw another one. But I've never seen a bad outcome from two. The only thing I would think would be is that if you're on the ground and it's really windy, that you've got two things that you're dealing with trying to cut away or disable or something. I could see that being bad, but is there a bad side to it?
Flying Karlis (01:33:56.415)
Well, I've actually never thought about it much about it. mean my one of my first reserve throws in Organia I threw one and I had massive pendulum and the first thing the Rogalo brothers said why didn't you throw the second? I was like I was concerned about down plane. That was my first reaction and I landed with that one reserve I never did throw the second I need to have a look I haven't looked into I assumed that the down plane is not as big of an issue because the shape of and the way they
Gavin McClurg (01:34:24.526)
I don't think it is with reserves. No, I don't think it is.
Flying Karlis (01:34:26.13)
Yeah, yeah, it's just a different shape where the wing has Yeah, I mean i've thrown two when the first malfunctioned Then I throw I've never thrown two at the same time personally But I think from the shape of it. It's a good one I think I need to look into it and i'm sure there's some videos because this is an interesting one to look into because I think because of the shape of them they
they're not gonna go down plane just like, you know, completely... Yeah, think the angle of it... Yeah, because it wants it to go to certain angle, therefore we'll start pushing it back. So I don't think it's that big a... Like wing can go, you know, we have those beautiful videos where the wings fly horizontally or vertically, you know, legs locked together and the pilots are opposite directions. So the wing can do that.
Gavin McClurg (01:34:56.77)
I don't think they can travel fast enough. I don't think they're a performant enough wing to downplane.
Gavin McClurg (01:35:08.738)
Yeah.
Flying Karlis (01:35:21.07)
Reserve can't do that. wants to stabilize as much as possible, sort of. So, top of my head, don't think it's... Besides what you said, that yeah, on the ground that's gonna be a handful if there's some wind, but in trees, I think that's even softer. You have more mess above you to catch you.
Gavin McClurg (01:35:39.202)
Yeah.
Yeah, and more time maybe to disable your main wing. I don't see too many drawbacks. know, it's an interesting thing to think about, but.
Flying Karlis (01:35:51.86)
Yeah, mean, the of my head I can't... But that doesn't mean there isn't. At top of my head I can't figure out. But it's definitely something to look into. That's new one for me, so I'll think about it.
Gavin McClurg (01:35:55.862)
No, definitely not.
Gavin McClurg (01:36:02.734)
I mean, you gotta pack two wings. I mean, you gotta pack two reserves after that, you know, but that's not a big deal. That's just good practice. Yeah. I guess the other thing we wanna just finish on here, for those of you listening who haven't thrown your reserve, you know, that the test is, like you said, I think it's 5.5 meters. That's really fast, really fast. And so, you know, this whole thing.
Flying Karlis (01:36:06.532)
but that's alright. I'll take that over a ankle.
Gavin McClurg (01:36:29.342)
of saving weight. This is not where you want to save weight in your kit. You you want to come down slow and you would be surprised. mean, think about all the places that you fly where you look down and you go, what would happen if I threw my reserve here? I mean, around here where I fly in the Rockies, I do not want to throw my reserve. I don't want to land in this stuff at all. But if I did throw my reserve, the last thing I want to be doing is coming down at five point five meters a second. It would be really painful. And so, yeah, just have.
have that in mind, that this is not the place to save weight. Do it if you're in the XL.
Flying Karlis (01:37:02.388)
I mean the 5.5 will save your life, but you will break your bones probably, depending where you land of course. But Rockies, yeah, yeah.
Gavin McClurg (01:37:08.908)
Yes. Yes.
Yeah, depending on where you land, how you land, if you do a good PLF, all those kind of things, but all of this stuff. Carlos, you're a treasure man. I really appreciate that you've given us all your time on these really good topics. And those of you listening, thanks for the questions. I appreciate it, but I appreciate you. I hope your shoulder gets better soon here and we get you back in the air. But thanks, man. Thanks for sharing all this.
Flying Karlis (01:37:19.848)
Yeah, and in
Flying Karlis (01:37:37.362)
My pleasure, happy to be here.
