Anthony Dillon learned to fly without any proper instruction back in the 90’s in Zimbabwe during the tumultuous Mugabe period. He spent 15 years flying in China (five of them alone) and has had a lifetime of epic flying adventures around the world, some rather daring flights, and has also unfortunately dealt with some serious injuries. Anthony initially reached out after hearing the episode with Serena Ronchi about how’s she’s successfully used EMDR therapy to deal with trauma from an accident as he’s also experienced benefits from the therapy to help him overcome PTSD from a recent crash. In this episode we’ll hear some wild stories about flying in Zimbabwe, China, Indonesia, and the U.S., along with insights into mental health tools like EMDR that helped Anthony overcome trauma. This episode highlights the resilience and love for adventure that keeps drawing pilots back to the skies.
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In this episode:
Anthony’s early flying days in Zimbabwe and his first paragliding experiences in the bush war environment
Flying in China solo for five years without other pilots and the evolution of paragliding in China
Major crashes and injuries, including multiple spinal fractures and recovery journeys
How EMDR therapy played a crucial role in overcoming PTSD and trauma related to flying accidents
Tracking his flights over volcanoes in Indonesia and exploring Europe’s soaring sites in France and Switzerland
The bond with his children through tandem flights and training, sharing adventures with his sons
Recent flights in North Carolina after long breaks, experiencing high-performance wings
Reflections on what drives his love for flying — adventure, freedom, birds, and the spirit of exploration
Future plans for travel and adventures with his family, including flying in Africa, Cape Town, and upcoming competitions
Timestamps:
00:00 – Introduction and background of Anthony Dillon’s flying journey 02:00 – First paragliding experiences in Zimbabwe during the bush war 06:30 – Transition to flying in China alone and challenges faced 10:10 – Recovering from major injuries and the importance of back protection 14:00 – Rebuilding confidence and flying again in China with local clubs 19:00 – Cross-country adventures in China and flying from remote sites 23:00 – Indonesia volcano flying and near-misses that changed his approach 27:00 – Returning to flying after injury and the evolution of gear 32:00 – Accident in North Carolina, injuries sustained, and the mental recovery process 37:00 – How EMDR therapy helped him process trauma and anxiety 42:30 – The significance of adventure, freedom, and flying with family 45:45 – Future trips and adventures planned with his children 47:30 – Son’s accident and how it impacted Anthony’s perspective on safety and risk 48:40 – Closing thoughts: the importance of community and psychological resilience in flying
Gavin McClurg (00:07.498)
Anthony, thanks for coming onto the show and making this work before your trip with your kids out to the Alps. We're gonna be talking about that. You reached out because of the show with Serena, the second one we did with her and she mentioned EMDR, which I've been using as well in therapy lately with.
the death of my good friend Terry. So you reached out, sounds like you had a pretty bad accident in 24 and that's been super valuable to get you back in the sport. So a bit of a teaser here, cause we're not gonna talk about that right away. We're gonna throw that into the end of the show for all of you listening and interested in that. That'd be a cool conversation, but I...
to do a podcast with you because you mentioned some things that were that sounded amazing. You spent 15 years in China. You learned in Zimbabwe, which is where you're from. You were down in Manila and and you were good friends with Xi Zhongping, the pilot who died when Eva was sucked up and went over what was it 30 grand? Famous story from 2007. So yeah, we got some cool things to talk about, but.
Anthony Dillon (01:04.974)
Thank you.
Gavin McClurg (01:16.718)
That was a long winded hello. Hello. Welcome to the show.
Anthony Dillon (01:20.324)
Thanks for having me on. Appreciate it.
Gavin McClurg (01:23.156)
Yes, you're out in North Carolina, you're buddies with Cone, who was one of my good friends, the relentless pilot who likes to send it big, and we did a podcast with him a little while back. So you in that kind of the same zone?
Anthony Dillon (01:36.259)
Yep, actually lives in Charlotte, not too far, but he's the local legend that we occasionally agree to be able to join the air with. We all get up together, but Cohen's gone before any of us can bench up.
Gavin McClurg (01:50.99)
Well, let's rewind the clock here a little bit. You've given me this great kind of timeline of your flying and it's just, it's fascinating. You learned in 92, 93 in Zimbabwe. What was that like? What were you flying? Who taught you? Did anybody teach you? Did you just grab something and knock yourself off?
Anthony Dillon (01:51.365)
Thank
Anthony Dillon (02:07.593)
I was actually living in China at the time and I was due to go back to Zimbabwe on four weeks leave. So I reached out to my dad, I said, you know, what do we have planned for the visit home? And he said, well, he had given a hitchhiker a lift back from South Africa to Zimbabwe and the guy had persuaded my dad to buy what was called a paraglider from him, which my dad knew nothing about. Anyway, he got home to Zimbabwe. He found a local instructor, signed up for a course and he wanted to know if my brother and I were going to join him.
I knew nothing about it, said absolutely. We grew up in a pretty hairy environment in Zimbabwe during a bush war and we were all about adventures. So went back to Zimbabwe, did the course, spent a week pretty much ground handling. The instructor had his hands full because was myself, my brother, my father was doing it, which my mother was much against at the time because he was in his late 50s. And yeah, we started chasing it. And we had some pretty epic adventures back in Zimbabwe.
The instructors were terrified about how much they taught us. They wanted us to basically take off, fly straight down, radio guidance. One of the first flights, one of our buddies landed in a Vukoviki thorn tree. Everyone ran up. Nobody was really interested in helping him get out of the thorns, but we unclipped his risers so we could get up the hill and jump off the next guy. So it was not for the faint of heart. Anyway, we progressed through the first week. My dad had his first proper flight of a
off a decent hill. My mother put her foot down and said, okay, you've done it. You'll now watch your sons do it. And we left it. I ordered a glider from Safke. It was a copy of an old Eidl. It was called a Nucular 33. Glider arrived in Zimbabwe. My brother and I were, yeah, my brother and I were keen as mustard. Obviously no reserve, no real seat board, anything. It was mostly just straps and
Gavin McClurg (03:55.214)
Is that because it had 33 cells? well.
Anthony Dillon (04:05.093)
My brother's first flight he kind of took off in a lovely African winter day. He took off and he just I said fly straight just gonna land. He was like, yeah, well he took off. He must have climbed 800 meters without a single turn. Just going straight up and I'm standing on the hill watching this and going oh dear. Anyway, he eventually I guess flew out the back of this thermal probably a kilometer or two out in the valley. Turned around, floated around, landed. We got to him and we were like that was epic. He was like I'm done.
Gavin McClurg (04:17.389)
Just going straight.
Anthony Dillon (04:35.117)
I ain't gonna do this again. So we never got him back in the air. So never got him back. Well, I think what didn't help was a week after he went back to university in South being Cape Town and a friend of his was doing a hang gliding course and broke his back coming into land on the beach in Cape Town. And that was kind of the icing on the cake. He said, no, I'm done with this.
Gavin McClurg (04:35.223)
Yeah.
Gavin McClurg (04:40.865)
You never did? That was it for him?
Gavin McClurg (04:56.333)
Nothing worse than going up when you want to be going down, especially when you have no idea what's going on. That must have been terrifying.
Anthony Dillon (05:04.261)
And boy did he I swear he was in a three four three to four meter a second climb it wasn't like a gentle rise he skyrocketed
Gavin McClurg (05:11.402)
Unbelievable.
Gavin McClurg (05:15.954)
shitting himself all the way to cloud base. All right, but you kept going. That didn't freak you out.
Anthony Dillon (05:17.815)
Over way.
Anthony Dillon (05:22.977)
No, I had a few flights obviously in Zimbabwe off our training hill and then I packed up my gear headed back to China and I was based So I was working for an American multinational up in the northern provinces Helping working with the local farmers kind of grow grow tobacco and various other crops So I was on the road a lot traveling, know the countryside and I kind of took my paraglider along with me and on the weekends I would try and find a suitable hill and just send it and yeah, it's what we don't know isn't it, you know, it's
Gavin McClurg (05:29.697)
What were you doing in China?
Gavin McClurg (05:35.169)
Okay.
Gavin McClurg (05:52.833)
Yeah. Was there anybody else flying? you the only one there? I can't imagine there's too many other people. Yeah.
Anthony Dillon (05:52.973)
Looking back at some of my...
I was the... There was nobody. I didn't come across another paragliding pilot for another five years and that was a guy called Sun Changyi who became sort of the... He was able to get China Aerosports Federation to recognize paragliding. But prior to that, the first sort of five odd years, I flew in China, not a single pilot.
Gavin McClurg (06:17.4)
Wow, that must've been a special time.
Anthony Dillon (06:19.685)
Yeah, look, there were some tough learning curves. I broke my I broke my leg. I'm trying to remember now, probably end of 96, flying a coastal site. Wind was probably above my pay grade. This stage I probably had one or 200 hours. I got blown over the back of a rather high mountain, dealt with the collapses and everything else. And just I was focused on getting on the ground and kept the wing open, landed in a plowed field that had a lot of fires and unfortunately rolled my ankle and broke it.
Gavin McClurg (06:23.677)
I bet.
Anthony Dillon (06:49.445)
So flew down to Hong Kong, got a pin stuck in my ankle, continued working. Two weeks later I was traveling around Russia on business and it was a bit of a handicap. yeah, I got through it. My keenest must to get back in the air. And then I ended up back in Zimbabwe. I wasn't sure if I was going to fly. I was on sort of leave and stuff. And I did have my glider with me.
Gavin McClurg (07:02.732)
Really?
Gavin McClurg (07:11.096)
And what are you flying now? What was the wing then?
Anthony Dillon (07:14.277)
That was still the same wing. It was the Nucleus 33, the Nucleus 33, Safran sort of knockoff of the Eagle. And some buddies kind of knocked at my door while I was on leave and they said, hey, we got a friendly comp going on here. Get back in the air with us.
Gavin McClurg (07:20.856)
Okay.
Gavin McClurg (07:30.54)
In Zimbabwe?
Anthony Dillon (07:31.661)
Yeah, this is back in Zimbabwe, back on leave again. So, against my better judgment, I joined them and that trip didn't end so good. I ended up having a multiple compression fracture in my low back, flying in this comp.
Gavin McClurg (07:34.605)
Wow.
Gavin McClurg (07:44.856)
And the ankle is all healed at this point. That's good.
Anthony Dillon (07:47.929)
Yeah, the anchor was healed. Unfortunately, not having a reserve, not having a seat board or any kind of back protection, I paid the price.
Gavin McClurg (07:55.307)
Mmm. And what, like a low stall or just coming in hot or what happened?
Anthony Dillon (08:01.039)
So we flew in the morning and it was a spot landing. My first time being back in the air, obviously for several months and I just boomed up. I flew out over towards the Mozambique border, came down there to take some photos of them. Guys were running around with AK-47s, I said hell with us. Went back up, flew back and landed. So I was very proud of myself from my morning's excursion. And then the afternoon was a point to point and there wasn't enough lift to fly straight there so.
I was timing the thermals coming up the face there, world's viewings of Mobi. Got quite aggressive on takeoff, got up in the air and I stalled the glider. 100 % pilot error. I was just being too aggressive, stalled the glider. I was worried about getting gift wrapped. Caught the surge and as I caught the surge I hit the edge of the hill but I was obviously still cognizant of my leg that just had pins removed. So I had that leg up and took most of the weight on my other leg and my coccyx and that's what fractured three vertebrae.
Gavin McClurg (08:49.505)
Yeah.
Gavin McClurg (08:57.038)
But at this stage in your flying, I mean, how many hours would you say you had at this point? Is that too hard? that? okay. So you're, and you're XC flying. You're piecing it together. Is that what you guys are doing then? Is that what was your, when you would launch, what was the goal?
Anthony Dillon (09:03.909)
Probably two, three hundred hours.
Anthony Dillon (09:19.813)
One, just try and get as high as I could. It wasn't really XC at that stage. was really just, know, because we're most of flying, yeah, most of flying in China was around rich sites, occasionally inland, but no real established sites. So was kind of find a hill, look at binoculars and look at a mountain, hitchhike up and then try and get off and get down safely. So no real ambitions at that stage. It was more kind of learning, you know, all the stuff we don't know, you know.
Gavin McClurg (09:24.48)
Okay, but you're thermolating and... yeah.
Gavin McClurg (09:47.085)
Yeah, yeah. Agoransis Bliss. All right, so then your next entry here is, well, actually, so you broke your back. What was the recovery like there? Were you still, okay, I don't know about this flying, or you wanted to get back into it, or where was your head space, and where was your physical space?
Anthony Dillon (09:50.33)
Yeah.
Anthony Dillon (10:07.013)
No, I wanted to get back, but I wanted to take a bit of a break. I wanted to make sure my fitness was there. I wanted to explore reserves and harnesses, which had back protection, because that was something I'd never flown with. So I stepped out for a few years, and then I had a big team that reported to me in China, and SARS hit China. I don't know you remember, back in 2003, we had to ship all our expatriate staffs, families out of China.
Gavin McClurg (10:13.325)
Hmm.
Gavin McClurg (10:31.062)
Yeah. Yep.
Anthony Dillon (10:37.221)
So I had a bunch of young guys and I'd find some way to keep them out the bars at night So I reached out to my old friend who had subsequently, you know made great strides with getting you know paragliding recognized in China and he introduced me to a local club He said yeah contact this club cool group of fellows. So Contacted the Beijing Club said hey, I got these I got four or five foreigners here. I Want them to learn how to fly with you and I said well bring them along but
We don't speak English, so you're going to be the point of contact for them. So I helped the guys go through their weeks training and everything. And during the course of that, the guys said to me, well, why don't you start flying? So I did a few hops off the local hill, the training hills. Next thing I knew, I'd ordered a new glider. And this time, got a Woody Valley harness with an airbag. I got a reserve, which I was delighted about. And I started to fly again. And the Beijing club were amazing.
Absolutely amazing group of guys. I was sort of the only foreigner took me under their wing Super sensitive about when they would it wouldn't let me fly and I you know, I that first year I racked up probably 150 hours I started chasing it hard again and then started looking to upgrade my wing wanted this, you know this mistake all of us make I'm like, well, I am superhero. Give me a high performing wing
Gavin McClurg (11:57.551)
Yeah, yeah, yeah. But physically, the back thing, at this point, it's a non-issue. You recovered fully. That was fine. OK.
Anthony Dillon (12:05.869)
100%. A surgeon in Zimbabwe wanted me to fly to England where he wanted to operate. My father had experience with back injuries and other things. And he took me down to Safka to see a specialist before I went back to China. And he said, don't touch it. He said, as much damage as you've done, he said, you're young, you fit, it'll recover. And it did touch wood. So yeah, yeah. No surgery on the mouth compression fracture. It just healed up in time. But I did put on a bit of weight.
Gavin McClurg (12:24.083)
so you didn't have surgery, you just recovered.
Anthony Dillon (12:32.069)
I wasn't that active. I was limited in many ways, wearing a corset for nearly six months. So when I got back into it in 23, I was too heavy for a solo glider. So the club had me sort of do my first flights in a tandem wing on my own.
Gavin McClurg (12:46.71)
Right, right. I'm looking behind you. Are those all lures? Are you big into fishing?
Anthony Dillon (12:52.357)
I am. have a fishing rod company called Hunter Rods and Lures. During my left China, I moved to Indonesia, did a lot of a particular type of fishing called popping and jigging and then started a company when I moved here to the States.
Gavin McClurg (12:56.561)
Gavin McClurg (13:05.747)
wow. And so were you living in, I don't want to get ahead of ourselves here, but were you living in Indonesia?
Anthony Dillon (13:12.517)
So no, we had been on holiday to Bali during my stint in China and done a lot of flying around Timbis, you know, the site there in Bali. Absolutely loved it. And then in 2005, the corporation I worked for merged with another American corporation and gave me a chance to get out of China after 15 years. They transferred me to Indonesia while I was like, well, hell yeah, there's good flying down there. I'll take the Indonesian posting.
Gavin McClurg (13:37.228)
Yeah. In Bali.
Anthony Dillon (13:40.953)
Well, so it was actually in Surabaya on the eastern tip of Java. But part of the deal I negotiated with my company at the time was they would give me a villa in Bali to spend my weekends at.
Gavin McClurg (13:46.104)
Yeah.
Gavin McClurg (13:51.824)
Ah, there you go. So you would fly, what was it, Kuta? No, not Kuta. It's that south side in Bali. I've flown there. I forget the name of it now. The Ridge Soaring site. Yeah. Yep.
Anthony Dillon (14:01.486)
Timbis is the rip-storing site and then Chandi Dasar is flying over the Black Sands a little bit further north.
Gavin McClurg (14:08.909)
Yeah, and did you ever fly the volcano? Yeah.
Anthony Dillon (14:11.382)
I did. that's actually, so I was doing a lot of ridge sawing. My sons were itching to get at it, but we had a mark on the kitchen door and I said to my sons, when you reach his height, I'll take you. Well, they shot up like bamboo in the spring rain. So then I figured, well, I better get my tandem license if I'm going to be taking these little buggers flying. So I got tandem certified and then I started taking Douglas, my middle son first.
initially rich soaring and timbers and then obviously we were living in on Java the main island and that was predominantly volcanoes. So I started flying with him there too as my kind of passenger and we started exploring.
Gavin McClurg (14:38.788)
Yeah.
Gavin McClurg (14:46.052)
Yeah.
Gavin McClurg (14:51.097)
Cool, that's fun. And what'd mama think of this?
Anthony Dillon (14:55.588)
Mum was okay with it. saw initially I was very sensitive about doing it only on coastal sites, so very stable winds. When we started to move inland on Java and started flying some of the volcanoes, she understood how much it meant to me. She saw how much it meant to her sons. And anytime the discussion came up, I would suggest she discussed it with Douglas, who obviously was just adamant he was going to continue flying with dad.
Gavin McClurg (15:03.075)
Yeah.
Gavin McClurg (15:22.302)
Yeah. And we got to talk about Douglas here in a little bit, because he's going to be competing in my ex Red Rocks this year, sounds like. He was going to last year, and then it had an unfortunate accident. Well, let's get to that in a second. But under 2003, SARS China, you've got He Zongping. And I don't know if I'm saying, sorry, I'm butchering his name probably. But he was the pilot that was killed when EVO was sucked up in 2007 at the Worlds. But why have you put him in at 2003? Is that when you guys met?
Anthony Dillon (15:50.863)
So when I started flying again during the SARS period, this group of pilots from Super Wing that took me into the wing, one of them was Heo Jun Ping. He was one of the top pilots in China, extraordinary fellow. And I did a lot of my sort of early discoveries as you know, starting to fly further, fly higher with him. And he was just an amazing pilot. He was conservative, but very capable. He flew a boomerang at the time. And he was one of the guys I was closest with.
Gavin McClurg (15:59.289)
Anthony Dillon (16:18.756)
I stayed in touch with him when I moved to Indonesia and I was still frequently going back to China on business and I would still see him and fly with him. when we lost him in 2007, had a big impact.
Gavin McClurg (16:32.707)
Yeah, it always does. What was 2004 first cross-country in China? Was that your first cross-country in China?
Anthony Dillon (16:41.528)
That was my first real adventure. had upgraded my wing and I had a couple of hundred hours under my belt. The Chinese were giving me a broader range to go walk about. yeah, I think at the time I was flying like a Sigma 6, loving the performance, got stinking high one morning pretty early, like nine, ten in morning. I said, OK, I'm going to go and check out these other ridges, which are 18 kilometers away. And I just went on full speed by and settled for my own.
Well, it didn't go as well as one might have hoped. I got over the first ridge and just hit massive sink. Well, in the valley between, was a Christmas tree farm. So I looked at the second ridge and I thought, well, I could make it, but there's high tension power lines running all the way along it. So I thought, okay, it's high tension power lines or Christmas tree farm. So I went into the Christmas tree farm and I was kind of unclipping myself from my harness and a local farmer came up and he saw a three wheel motorbike and he said, what the hell are you doing? So I said, why?
I need some help here. By that stage my man room was getting pretty good. So he disappeared, came back a few minutes later with a saw, cut the fur tree down, packed up my glider, put me in the back of his, what the Chinese call Toraji, is like a three-wheeler tractor. And he said, I'll run you back to wherever you've come from. I said, well, it's a good 15, 20 clicks away. And he was like, well, we'll figure it out. Stop for lunch at his home on the way. He fed me, met the family. And then we continued on to drop me back to where I'd come from.
That was my first word, would say, real cross-country. It didn't end too well.
Gavin McClurg (18:16.431)
I haven't been, I haven't.
Anthony Dillon (18:17.472)
You can't make them in the step up, man.
Gavin McClurg (18:21.173)
Yeah, you can't. Yeah, you can't. Yeah, I haven't been to China. I haven't flown in China, but from people I've heard that have gone there for World Cups and events and that kind of thing, you just get treated like a king. It's really kind of highly respected there, right? And I've been getting a lot of Chinese pilots at the Red Rocks wide open every year. You know, there's some really good pilots.
Anthony Dillon (18:46.28)
even back in the day, so when I really started flying a lot with the Superwing club and these guys were absolutely amazing. I think the head of the club was the dealer for Jen at the time. He's still running the Superwing club, although he does a lot of flying in the South. Just an incredible community of people. Hard to describe, Gavin. I was obviously the token foreigner, they kind of treated me. They didn't want anything to happen to me because that was going to impact their sport.
We traveled all around the country and flew together. I flew the Linzhou site where a lot of the PWCs happen. Frequently with the guys, we flew a lot in Yunnan province, flew a lot in Xinjiang province, Guizhou province, flew all around the place. Today, I mean, there's a huge community. In those days, a lot of these sites were just opening pilots, we're discovering new sites. It was not regulated under China Aerospace Federation. So we had licenses, we had to go through, know, proficiency tests, that kind of stuff. But...
Gavin McClurg (19:20.686)
Yeah.
Anthony Dillon (19:42.018)
Amazing place highly recommended anyone has an opportunity to fly in China. Give it a give it a go They got some amazing places and some amazing people
Gavin McClurg (19:51.664)
.
And tell me a little bit about, know, paint a picture for, know, if I just rocked up in Beijing and I wanted to fly a big line, let's, you know, because I've looked, they've got some big lines to fly. There's been proposals, you know, up in Tibet and that kind of thing. you know, I know, for example, in Japan, it's really tricky because of the airspace. I mean, again, very friendly and a wicked place to fly, but the airspace makes it really tough. there, you know, could you just show up in China and make it work or is it really?
Anthony Dillon (20:21.124)
No.
Gavin McClurg (20:22.007)
restricted. know like Australia is kind of tricky when it comes to this. There's so many rules and radio stuff and you know it can be kind of tricky. It's hard to just show up and send it.
Anthony Dillon (20:32.069)
So I haven't flown in the last few years, so things might have changed. But from my time there, it was very sensitive. We had to be very careful. Where we mostly did our flying in Mengshan in Beijing, we had a cylinder of about 20, 30 clicks. We weren't supposed to exceed. And air traffic was kept away from that by Beijing Airport. That said, we did have an occasion one day. Several of us got very high.
Gavin McClurg (20:38.936)
Okay.
Anthony Dillon (20:57.489)
the guy driving the van got on the radio and started yelling, we looked down and a JAL 747 came in underneath us approaching Beijing International. but anybody who wants to send the big lines, I don't think it will happen around Beijing. that time we dealt with lot of inversions, but when you start to move out to some of the provinces like, Qinghai we always thought had great potential, Xinjiang has great potential. Some of these areas are not, you know, still not that open.
but I would just get hold of the local clubs, local pilots and there are guys out there sending it and some great pilots and great pilots.
Gavin McClurg (21:29.967)
Mmm.
Very cool. Okay, so then Indonesia, you're doing some tandems with Doug, your middle son, and let's pick it up from there.
Anthony Dillon (21:43.878)
So yeah, was chasing it hard, obviously flying on my own, mostly on the east side of Java around the volcanoes. My daughter was born in December of 26, that same week. I had a solo flight, sorry, 2007, she's like, yeah. I had a solo flight. It was a day that appeared to be an average cross country day, know, take off in Malang.
Gavin McClurg (21:57.265)
No, not 26, not December 26, 06. Okay, okay, yep.
Anthony Dillon (22:10.277)
fly across to some of the sides of volcanoes and then try and do small triangles, nothing big. And while I was halfway across the first volcano and I just got snatched as we, as you know, we often do. Well, I had a GPS, I figured I'd be okay. I got ripped up into the clouds, was not comfortable with where I was. I knew a volcano was pretty close. Tried to spiral out of it, tried to big ears, still climbing, three or four meters a second. So I did a V-line stall.
I did a pretty hefty one. At that time I was flying one of Bruce Goldsmith's wings. was, at the time, was a big wing. It was like 33 square meters. I did a beeline stall which took a while to come out of and it was a bit of a hairy, hairy ride. Literally as I came out of this cloud I was probably 50 yards from a volcano called Penanggungan. So opened the glider again, got stabilized, tried to move the other direction from the volcano again.
Got into cloud suck. Well, I went on full speed bar. Just managed to get out of it. Landed, shaken badly. Although I felt at the time I was very current. know, over the last year, I probably had 150 hours at least of air time. Landed, got home and my wife at the time saw I was shaken. And she said, you know, you've just had a newborn child, which is my daughter Claire. She said, you need to think long and hard about this because you now got, you know, four or five miles to feed.
Gavin McClurg (23:10.128)
Ugh.
Anthony Dillon (23:37.638)
That night I had a call from the China crew and they told me about her, Ping, having been caught in the storm in Australia. And I spent a very sleepless night. I woke up the next morning and I said, you know what, I need to step away from this for a while. And my wife at the time said, that's good. She said, do that until Claire's 18. So I was like, well, that's a long time. So I regrettably packed up my wing and...
I'd been very shaken by the flight the day before and the loss of her jumping and thinking about obviously now my obligations, responsibilities as a parent. So I stopped completely and then we got transferred to the States in 2012. Came over here. Yeah, came over to the States. Made some inquiries about paragliding, heard about a site in North Carolina called Tater Hill, but it was like a three hour drive.
Gavin McClurg (24:20.272)
So this is six years later.
Anthony Dillon (24:31.481)
I thought, you know what, I'd agreed to step away until Claire was 18. So I honored that and I did. Well, lo and behold, now my kids grow up, Douglas goes to live upstate New York. You he was living in New York at the time. Next thing I hear, he signed up to take a course at Morningside.
Gavin McClurg (24:47.44)
On his own. He did this on his own.
Anthony Dillon (24:50.681)
He did this all on his own. So I said, well, before you do the course, come home and I'm going to try and give you some basics about ground handling and stuff. So I got out one of my old, you know, solo wings, which is still big considering my boys are pretty light compared to me. went ground handling down near the coast and they got dragged all around and loved every second of it.
Gavin McClurg (25:10.606)
Wow, cool. That's so fun.
Anthony Dillon (25:12.197)
So Douglas did his course and then a weeks later his brother came to me and said, I'm going up to Morningside too. I was like, I've I've got two of them doing it.
Gavin McClurg (25:22.042)
How old were they at the time?
Anthony Dillon (25:23.685)
So I think Douglas was probably 24, Ben was 22.
Gavin McClurg (25:27.842)
Okay, and this was 20... what year we here?
Anthony Dillon (25:32.805)
So I think Douglas signed up for his course in 23. Yeah. Yeah.
Gavin McClurg (25:35.888)
23, okay, so it's three years ago. And then for you, it just, and Claire's, now she's over 18, right? So you got the green light, right? She's getting close. We can mush these things a little bit.
Anthony Dillon (25:43.59)
While she was getting close, so I sat her down and she saw her brother's chasing it and she could see I was angst. know, anytime the boy sent me a video I'd get super excited and she came to me one day and she said, Dad, you miss us, don't you? I said, you have no idea. She said, well, why don't you fly? So I said, does that the green light? was like, yeah, now I'm obviously now single.
So didn't have the other half of the equation to worry about that negotiation. And I said, well, yeah, I think so. And in the meantime, I found the local North Carolina sort of crew, Lucas, Cohen, Buck, a couple of the other guys, and I started driving for them. So I drive up the hill because I have a nice truck and occasionally my boys would fly with me. And one day I decided, you know what, I got my old gear out. I got my old Mustang, my Airwaves Mustang out, started ground handling, repack the reserve and...
Gavin McClurg (26:14.318)
you
Anthony Dillon (26:39.277)
One day I went up the hill with the guys, said, you know what, I think it's time. It's been far too long. I'm just going to have a nice takeoff, glide out land. Well, what happened was a completely different experience. But I got back in the air for the first time with my sons on the hill, rather apprehensively watching me.
Gavin McClurg (26:56.74)
What was the completely different experience?
Anthony Dillon (26:58.617)
Well, they had given me this long lecture about what I was to do. Get it up, out, go and land. Well, I had a beautiful launch, got up in the air, straight into a thermal, looked around me, I was like, hell no. Cranked it up, got up. There was another one of our guys who I think you know, Lucas Soller. And Lucas was in a thermal further down the ridge. I got up, we joined, we hollered at each other, and I knew that my boys were going to be going mental. So, reluctantly, I flew out of the thermal. It was...
Gavin McClurg (27:03.353)
Okay.
Gavin McClurg (27:17.988)
Yeah.
Anthony Dillon (27:28.453)
Bearing in mind this is still a high performance glider and I hadn't flown in like over 15 years. So I flew out of the thermal, went down landed and yeah, that's kind of where the journey started again.
Gavin McClurg (27:33.443)
Yeah, man.
Gavin McClurg (27:40.497)
And was it just love at first sight again or was it, oh God, this is kind of freaky. mean, 15 years is...
I fly a lot and every spring I go through this and flying in Idaho in the spring is pretty sharp. But still there's a couple weeks there of kind of getting tuned back in that are nerve wracking, I would put it. It's just, oh God, oh God. It's hard to control that irrational voice between the ears.
Anthony Dillon (28:11.013)
So I think what helped was I was spending a lot of time around the other pilots. I was on the hill with them any chance we got. I was doing the retrieves for them in between. was doing a lot of ground handling. A lot of ground handling. I always felt that was critical for any pilot irrespective of skill level. I then ordered a new wing, which I was able to find a company called Macparo. was really the only company that made a wing that went up to my size. They made an Eden 7, which was a high B that went up to kind of 145 kilos.
So I ordered the Eden 7 and I was just, I loved it. First time I got back in the air with it was actually the first time I ever flew with my two sons. And they were very nervous about me, new wing, know, many years not flying anyway. I took off, had a great launch, lovely rich road.
Gavin McClurg (28:39.994)
Yep.
Gavin McClurg (28:56.176)
But God, the tech has changed a lot in 15 years. I mean, you must've been blown away.
Anthony Dillon (28:59.077)
It was absolutely there. was a few weeks prior. I'd been flying my Airwave Mustang 2 and I think Bruce only made one or two of those because it was so big. It was uncertified. I went from that to onto this Eden 7 and it was like a completely different game. One, the glide was amazing. It wasn't always trying to bite me. And the guy said, I remember Lucas asking me at the end of that, he said, how was it flying that high performance wing after so many years? I said, it felt like I was wrangling a
a spitting cobra. So I was all for this new gear, all for the new gear. landed after that flight with my two sons was just the most incredible experience. Any man who's flown with his children gets what I'm saying.
Gavin McClurg (29:36.107)
I bet that was exciting.
Gavin McClurg (29:46.418)
That's what you're talking about here about your greatest memory, just flying with your kids. God, that would have been special. Wow. And kind of this full circle moment, right? I mean, wow. In a sense of a lifetime of flight with this huge break and then you get to do it with your kids. Very cool.
Anthony Dillon (29:49.391)
Yeah, it was, yeah. What?
Anthony Dillon (30:03.621)
Yeah, we've always, our family's always been about adventures. So, you I was back in the air again, flying any chance I got with them. Next thing I knew Douglas had signed us up for an SIV at Lake Garda with flying Carlos. So we packed up our gear and in spring of 24 we went to Lake Garda to do, for my boys and myself to do our first SIV.
Gavin McClurg (30:26.129)
And then you did something to your shoulder there. Was that on here? I can't remember. I remember that from an email. What were you doing? You're walking around or something?
Anthony Dillon (30:32.281)
Yeah, so we got to launch the first evening. Wind was blowing very hard. My two sons were able to get off and do basically just a sled run. We went back up the hill the next day and it's quite a long walk to the top of Mount Balda there. Wind was too strong, so the instructor who was with us said, look, let's walk down the bottom and see if we can move down the hill. But there was about a foot of two of ice and snow on the ground.
Gavin McClurg (30:48.699)
Yeah.
Anthony Dillon (31:01.497)
Douglas and Ben obviously put the packs on the run down the ice. I have a few spine by now. I had a herniated disc shortly before I moved to the States. I'm a little bit sensitive on ice. I don't want to end up with another spinal fusion. So I gingerly walked down this 150 meters. I get down the last two meters and what happens? My feet go out from under me. So heavy pack on land on my right elbow and I dislocated my right elbow, my right shoulder. Well, I figured I've come all the way here.
Gavin McClurg (31:11.919)
Yeah. Yeah.
Gavin McClurg (31:25.393)
Anthony Dillon (31:29.325)
I'm potentially the whole trip is going to be a mess. I said, well, you know how to fix this, do it, because I'd help guys on the rugby field as a youngster put back into this. So I put my shoulder back in and just bellowed. Well, the boys had turned around and they saw me just writhing in the ground in agony. Well, I got over it. Shoulder was back in, very painful. An hour later, you know, my boys took off. I then took off too. And it was a really, really interesting flight.
got over the water, Carlos gave me instructions what he wanted me to do and we started with the spirals and natural exit, rapid exit. And I was coming in to do the approach and I don't know if you know that site, but in the morning and midday winds moved from different ends. Well, I was approaching from the south end and set up my approach and the instructor at the time thought I was flying a very high performance wing. So he encouraged me to move further out over the water. So I did that reluctantly. Look, my fault. I was a pilot. Should have been making my own decisions.
Gavin McClurg (32:09.295)
Hell yeah.
Yeah.
Anthony Dillon (32:27.841)
started to move further away from the landing and all the time I'm looking back at the LZ going, ain't, so I said no hell with this. I turned back, went on full speed bar to try and make, try and make the edge of the grass. Well, I fell probably a meter or two short in the water. So the airbag goes off. I'm pissed, I'm pissed, I'm pissed with myself now that, you know, I obviously made this mistake. The guys run up the jetty and they grab my right arm to try and lift me out the water. Well, as they grab my right
Gavin McClurg (32:44.27)
God.
Gavin McClurg (32:56.049)
Anthony Dillon (32:57.643)
As they grabbed my right arm, I started hollering like a wounded buffalo. They let me go and Carlos came up to me, he said, what's wrong? I said, well, I dislocated my shoulder 30 minutes ago on launch. But fortunately, it was back in place. I had a great muscle analgesic with me called Diclofenic sodium. Voltron is the trade name. So I kind of stocked up on that and we continued chasing it.
Gavin McClurg (33:28.417)
You're a legend. I love it. I know you're from Zimbabwe, but in my experience, you've got some South African in you or something. My goodness. Go for it. All right. And then we teased about this at the top of the show, but now the reason you reached out. So what happened in 24?
Anthony Dillon (33:39.013)
Yeah.
Anthony Dillon (33:50.726)
So we came back actually from that SIV. I chased it hard for several weeks with my sons and then I had a very bad accident. 100 % pilot error. I was benching up at a local site here in North Carolina. I had two surges. know, sort of instinct. I caught the first surge, kept on flying. Second surge a few seconds later, caught that exactly the same way and I had 100 % symmetric collapse. I was probably 100, 150 feet above the trees and I did everything wrong.
They talk about disassociating your arms from the glider. I did none of that. In that very short period of time, went into, I stalled the wing, I went into back fly, did it, I went locked into locked in spiral. eventually got, came out of it. But as I came out of it, I smashed into the trees. I figured at the time, you know, it's not the end of the world. I'm, my glider is going to hang up in the trees. Well, a really big tree. It's probably three or four foot across broke. And I came down with it through the canopy.
Gavin McClurg (34:46.309)
Jeez.
Anthony Dillon (34:48.279)
and hit the ground really hard. Now, fortunately, there was a sapling growing behind me which prevented this log rolling over me, but I was in bad shape. So, I broke my left clavicle, I ripped off my left bicep, I broke 11 ribs and I shattered my spleen. So the guys got me up the hill, air ambulance into emergency surgery, I lost six liters of blood. Long story short, I recovered pretty quickly, had to a second operation a couple of months later to repair the
broken clavicle and reattach my bicep. And then I started, you know, obviously the mental game. Am I going to get back into the air or not? And I struggled, Gavin, I really struggled. It was kind of do I, don't I, my boys were encouraging me. Ultimately it came down to discussions with my daughter and she said, look, dad, this sport means a lot to you. You love your adventures. She said, why don't you start doing it again if it means that much to you? Just try and mitigate risk wherever you can. So I said, okay, so we...
My glider had been torn to shreds obviously. I got a new glider, a new Mach 8, the Eden 8. And my first time back in the air was the next SIV in France with Fab from Flyer. Had an amazing SIV, really enjoyed it. The boys chased it hard, especially Ben, youngest, had his best flights there in Annecy. Came back to the States, continued to fly, but I was having terrible anxiety, mostly driving to the hills.
Gavin McClurg (35:58.717)
working.
He's one of the best.
Anthony Dillon (36:15.845)
like debilitating. I'd get on a launch, I'd find myself having to sit there for a long period of time and the mental game, I really struggled. But one day, one of the...
Gavin McClurg (36:16.598)
Mmm.
Gavin McClurg (36:24.657)
Were you just visualizing, I mean, I've gone through this, I think this is really common, but you visualize the horrible shit splatting into the rocks and stuff like that. Or what was the tension about?
Anthony Dillon (36:36.089)
Well, I had the whole accident on Insta360.
Gavin McClurg (36:43.135)
okay.
Anthony Dillon (36:44.191)
I'd shared this with flying Carlos and Carlos very kindly had given me feedback, showed me what I could have done differently and everything else. So I spent a lot of time analyzing this as part of my sort of preparation or decision-making process. Am I going to fly again or not? I couldn't put my finger on exactly what it was, but I was having this terrible anxiety. Once I was in the air, it abated, but it was getting launched and on launch.
A pilot here in North Carolina was with me one day on TED, his name is John, amazing guy. he reached out to me that night and he said, you know, I saw on launch day, you were struggling. He said, have you thought of something called EMDR? I said, look, I've tried to research different types of, you know, trauma therapies and things, but no, I don't know about EMDR. Well, I ended up finding amazing therapists here in Raleigh, North Carolina. And I said, went in to have an interview and she said, yeah, you have classic PTSD. She said, I think this can help you. So I signed up.
and I ended up taking six or seven courses with her and it was a complete game changer.
Gavin McClurg (37:48.421)
Wow. And are you using, are you using like the little vibrating balls or using light or what are you using to kind of induce?
Anthony Dillon (37:55.558)
So this, for me it was the clickers you put in each hand. you know, she, I had a clicker in each hand. So it's the visual as well as the sound, sorry, the stimulus as well as the sound. And initially you start to reprocessing your memories, your negative memories associated with the trauma. And then you take your mind to a more comfortable place. had, you know, I this picture in my mind of a place I used to fish in Indonesia on an island called Sumba, beautiful sand, calm, people.
Gavin McClurg (37:59.613)
The clickers, yeah. That's what I'm using.
Gavin McClurg (38:22.126)
Yeah, know Zumba well. I've done a lot of surfing down there and sailing in that part of the world. yeah.
Anthony Dillon (38:25.463)
you know, Sumba, I fished heavily around Sumba for many years with my sons. Anyway, that was my magic place. And then we started with the clickers and slowly we reprogrammed. We broke down my accident into the memories which had the greatest trauma and slowly we reprogrammed it. And it worked magic with me. Absolute magic.
Gavin McClurg (38:31.398)
Really?
Gavin McClurg (38:47.568)
Wow. Yeah, that was, you know, when Serena said that that's what she was doing, it kind of caught me by surprise because I had never heard about it for that kind of use, which of course it makes perfect sense. The first time I'd ever even heard about it was I recently started going to therapy for this death of my buddy. And I just, I knew I wasn't processing it well or correctly. And it was, was a...
you know, was just leading to other issues in life where I just wanted to get a grip on this thing. And she said, well, have you ever tried this? And it's been, I would say similarly, it's been amazing. I mean, within, it was two sessions where I was able to just say a very natural goodbye and.
Anthony Dillon (39:26.669)
there it is.
Gavin McClurg (39:36.915)
and go through the whole experience and she actually brought me back to the site of the accident, which I wasn't even there. I wasn't with him that day. It was a very good friend of ours and she was obviously very traumatized by this thing as well. It was ugly, you know, but she had me visualize just being there with him and digging him out and seeing my friend and knowing that he was dead. But also then also
reprogramming it to my place is this local pond that's right down the street here with the flowers and the ducks and the geese and it's just one of my favorite places on earth to just go and hang out and it just suddenly I suddenly found it all there wasn't any trauma with it anymore it was very it was it really an interesting process to go through.
Anthony Dillon (40:29.399)
I initially thought my trauma was associated with this particular site I flew and flying here in North Carolina. September of last year, my work carried me to Switzerland. flew, I had several flights there around Villeneuve in Switzerland. Again, nervous going up, having to wait on launch for an hour. I went out to fly in Monroe at the Red Rocks, sort of friendly fly in. And I was quite intimidated in the big mountains. They obviously the low oxygen.
And I had several flights with Lucas and a couple of guys here from North Carolina. And I wasn't right, but once I got to sort of my fifth or sixth session of this EMDR therapy, I had a flight where I went with my son to Eagle Rock, a site in Virginia, and we couldn't drive up to launch, so we hiked up. So I was a bit wary when we got up there, but my mind was all of a sudden in a completely different place. We had virtually no wind. I had to do a forward launch. And when you start to get along in the tooth like I am, you know, that can be a bit intimidating, but
I had a great forward launch, floor off landed, and I stood back and I said to myself, you know what? That's the first time I haven't felt any anxiety since my accident. And I said, it's amazing.
Gavin McClurg (41:33.138)
Wow.
And are you doing anything active? I mean, I know that you and I in our correspondence back and forth, you initially reached out and just said, I think it'd be really great to have somebody who's a professional that understands this stuff, the psychology of it, not just me. I'm just doing it. I don't really necessarily understand it very well, and I am as well. But are you doing anything actively between these sessions? Are you practicing it? Are you doing any kind of mindfulness training? Are you doing anything?
Anthony Dillon (41:49.561)
Yeah.
Gavin McClurg (42:04.542)
before you launch now to remember the fishing place in Zumba.
Anthony Dillon (42:10.277)
Well, initially the therapist had given me some things I could try on launch. He said, look, this is going to take a few sessions off the first second session. You know, when I was on launch, I tried breathing exercises that another friend, Daniel Orchimotto had kindly walked me through. I found that helped a bit trying to feel, you know, what's under your feet, trying to observe what's around you, really take your mind away. But it wasn't until I got through sort of five or six sessions that the mind really started to calm down.
Gavin McClurg (42:37.746)
Wow, what a cool story. What do you think, I wanted to ask you this before we even got into this part of the talk, but what do you think is embedded in you with this love of flight for so long, since the early 90s, that drove you to it and that has kept you so wrapped about it? What is it? What is it?
Anthony Dillon (42:58.275)
I love adventures and this sport for pilots who fly and know is very unique. I've tried a whole gamut of stuff. I grew up spearfishing in crocodile infested waters in the Zambisi River, did a lot of hunting as a boy. One of my passions is falconry, so I've always been interested in the air and birds. And just the sense of freedom that this sport, when your feet leave the ground, nothing comes close. And I guess that's what keeps bringing me back.
sense of adventure, the freedom. Violetta I think described it very well in an article she wrote a couple of years ago, but what draws us back to it? That's a million dollar question because it is so unique.
Gavin McClurg (43:40.324)
It is so unique. What do you see in your future with your sons, with your daughter, with flying? What's on the agenda?
Anthony Dillon (43:49.35)
So we got some adventures planned. On Friday we head back to go spend some time with Fab in the French Alps. So we're actually going out a couple of days ahead of time. So the boys and I want to chase it. think Doug doesn't Ben have a plan to run the highway and try and get to Chamonix. So I'll kind of let them do their thing. And then we do the S.I.V. for a couple of days and come back. And then in October, I've got a trip to Cape Town with another North Carolina legend here, Bubba Goodman. We're going out on the sort of 10 day paragliding safari. So we.
Gavin McClurg (44:05.702)
Working.
Gavin McClurg (44:18.545)
Huh?
Anthony Dillon (44:19.631)
We've got a bunch of paragliding adventures this year.
Gavin McClurg (44:22.754)
Okay, so you'll do Porterville and fly the rock there and yeah, cool.
Anthony Dillon (44:26.339)
Yeah, so I actually flew port, I flew port, did portable way back in the day, sort of 96, 97, 98, around that time, I did a couple of short distance flights from there. But yeah, it's basically portable, hopefully flying off Lion's Head, Signal Hill around Table Mountain, Sedgefield, Wilderness, Solaris Pass. I mean, at that time of the year we're going, you can pretty much fly every day. And the guy we're going to fly with Barry Peterson is an absolute legend. So he hosts, you know,
Gavin McClurg (44:50.694)
Yeah.
Yeah.
Anthony Dillon (44:54.894)
from overseas for 10 days and puts you up in nice digs. It's very affordable and you don't have to worry about your retrieve. So Barbara and I are going to go and have some fun, just send it.
Gavin McClurg (45:04.53)
And that's October.
Anthony Dillon (45:05.923)
That's enough to be it.
Gavin McClurg (45:07.682)
Wicked, I think I want to sign up for that. That sounds great. Yeah, the last time I was in Cape Town, I was buried in bilges and bottom paint and I was in the yard. Yeah, I didn't have any time to take advantage of even looking around. I was kind of buried in work. So yeah, I got to get back and that's an amazing place. I got to get back for the prize.
Anthony Dillon (45:18.041)
on the boat.
Anthony Dillon (45:30.341)
I have a brother out there so we're going to visit with him. Actually my boys and I were out there in July last year. I was obviously back in the air struggling obviously with this PTSD but we had a chance to fly in Cape Town at Cardusi, the other end of Portable, but it was not working that day so we just had a couple of sliders and then went up to Zimbabwe. Conditions are not great in Zimbabwe. I wanted to re-fly Worldview but wind was coming over the back so yeah it's one adventure after the next for the Dillon.
Gavin McClurg (45:58.444)
Yeah, wicked. Final question, and I don't want to hammer away at negative stuff because there's been a ton of positive here too, but your son was going to race, Doug, your middle son was going to race in the X-Ride Rocks last year. He was training with Ben and doing all the right stuff. And then he had an accident. Just briefly, we talked about that before we started recording. What happened to him? And what is this? Did that put any, was it different?
You've had some accidents, was it different having your son having an accident? Does that change how you approached flying?
Anthony Dillon (46:35.628)
Yeah, it was very different. And it may sound malicious to say this, but I think Douglas had a cheap lesson. So he was pushing his people who know Douglas, he pushes it hard. He's a good pilot. He's into the sport 100%. That particular day of flying Tater Hill in North Carolina, not great conditions. He was flying his high performance wing. He got over the other side of valley and he didn't
room or margin for error coming into land instead of just landing on the big fields he had below him he tried to skip over this last sort of hill and get into launch so he went on speed bar got over and didn't make it he went into the trees and unfortunately he fell through the trees and then had a compression fracture three of his vertebrae he recovered incredibly quickly from it taking a peptide called BPC157 I think the trade name is Wolverine well the boy was back in his feet in two days
A week later he kind of saw the orthopaedic specialist here and he was negotiating with the specialist saying, know, in two months this guy called Gavin has this race out in Utah. said, you think I'm going to be good for this? And the guy was like, are you mad?
Gavin McClurg (47:44.179)
I some of the correspondence from that. I think I'm gonna still make it. Really? Jeez, dude.
Anthony Dillon (47:50.107)
Anyway, he's been training hard and I think he's looking forward to coming out and flying in your comps this year.
Gavin McClurg (47:56.148)
that'd be fun to host them and hopefully you can make it as well I think the I think the Red Rocks flying remains the biggest one in North America, but they're they're tuning things down here a little bit this year I think it's gonna be less people it'll be and be more intimate. So and you know, we'll have the X Red Rocks the same week It's always the same time. So be fun Anthony legend, dude, I really appreciate you sharing all these stories and and and reaching out, know, just an interesting
thing for us to discuss and I'm sure something that is valuable to the community. know, there's unfortunately no short, that we're not short of these kind of situations in this sport. And so I think it's something that folks that are having trouble with the mental side of things can really tap into. You and I have both certainly had some good results from it. Yeah.
Anthony Dillon (48:42.916)
God.
I found it so valuable. If anyone has any questions, I'm happy to share my experiences, but highly, highly recommend it. And Gavin, thank you for having me. I appreciate you giving me the chance to sort of some of my shenanigans with the broader family out there, but specifically EMDR, it was a game changer for me.
Gavin McClurg (49:03.815)
Wicked, wicked. Well hey, have fun on your trip to the Alps. I'm glad we were able to sneak this in before you take off. Say hi to Fab and the boys over there for me. They are awesome and enjoy Annecy, man. It's one of my favorite places on earth.
Anthony Dillon (49:17.676)
I will do Gavin. Thanks very much.
