Author Archives: Gavin McClurg

Episode 55- Xandi Meschuh and building a foundation

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Xandi Meschuh has been in the flying game since the very beginning. He learned to fly RC planes from his father, a pilot before he was ten years old and got the paragliding bug soon afterwards. Xandi has his own flight park near Gerlitzen, Austria where he teaches new students as well as seasoned professional pilots looking to nail their first Infinite loop. He has taught SIV since SIV began; has been a test pilot and designer for Icaro since 2004; operates a successful tandem business; is a skilled XC pilot and has seen just about everything.

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Garmin InReach Best Practices for Adventurers

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In the past couple years it’s been really heartening to see pretty much every pilot on launch use an InReach or a SPOT satellite tracking device. And I’m seeing them more and more in the backcountry with skiers, mountain bikers, climbers and people playing in remote areas. This is a very good thing. What isn’t great is that many people are not really familiar with their device and not utilizing them properly for messaging, maps, and hardly know how powerful they are, and this can become a serious problem when things go wrong, which is when an InReach immediately becomes the most valuable thing you own.

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Episode 54- Dustin Martin and finding the magic

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In this wide-ranging and laugh-out-loud episode Dustin Martin takes us through some close calls with tornados (plural!); how to assess a gust front; a brief history of hang gliders; the importance of mentors; how to find good lines; avoiding sink; working light lift; reducing drag; advice for new pilots; chasing world records; sponsorship; being a student and building a foundation; the origins of the Cloudbase Foundation, the dangers of moving to a higher performance wing too fast; what it takes to win; maintaining passion and a TON more. This was one of the most enjoyable discussions we’ve had on the Mayhem, please don’t miss this one!

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Episode 53- Gavin reviews the 2017 Red Bull X-Alps

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In this episode we turn the tables a bit and I get interviewed by Nik Hawks, who followed the race closely and had a bunch of questions for me. Why did we pull the nightpass the first night? What mistakes were made? What did we learn from the 2015 race that came in handy this time? That bomb-out on day three when we were in such a strong position- what happened and what were the consequences? This and a lot more.

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Episode 52- Pal Takats X-Alps, Acro, and what you can do to stay safe

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Pal Takats began flying 16 years ago in the flatlands of Hungary and has since created a career any pilot would envy. One of the first Red Bull acro pilots and the man responsible for many of the current and modern acro combinations (the Joker, Cowboy, Esfera, etc.) Pal does paramotor demos for Red Bull at air races around the world, base jumps in his free time, flies speed wings, has twice competed in the Red Bull X-Alps (he was 8th in 2009 and 7th in 2017), is an exceptional cross country and world cup competition pilot but it hasn’t all been a walk in the park to get there.

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Episode 51- Sailplane radness, the Perlan Project, Imagining the Possibilities

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Imagine an engineless airplane reaching the edge of space. Crazy? Impossible? In this episode of the Cloudbase Mayhem Kevin Brooker, a passionate sailplane pilot takes us through the long history of sailplanes to the stuff that is at the far edge of what the imagination can even grasp. Just recently the altitude record was broken (52,000 feet!)- without an engine flying in wave in the Andes.

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Episode 50- Dave Snowden and turning talent into Wins

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Episode 50 is all about competitions. From flying psychology to training David Snowden has taken 25 years of flying passion into figuring out to take a country (Australia) with plenty of talent but with few of the resources that France, Germany, and Switzerland (for example) have to be a serious player on the world stage. In this podcast Dave sheds light on their journey from not even having a team in 2015 and being ranked in 38th place in the world to breaking the top 15 and sending a strong, competive team to the Worlds this summer in Italy.

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Episode 49- Honza Rejmanek and Understanding the Invisible

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Honza Rejmanek competed in the Red Bull X-Alps five times. He finished in 3rd place in 2009 and made goal in Monaco in his last campaign in 2015. Many of our listeners will also know Honza from his regular meteo column in Cross Country Magazine. Honza makes a living as a meteorologist and in this episode we tap into his vast knowledge of the invisible world we operate in and how to understand how it works and how to use this knowledge to fly farther and safer. Honza’s passion for flying and for weather are obvious from the first word- consider this a masters class in understanding the sky!

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Episode 47- Max Fanderl and a lifetime of flight

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Max Fanderl began flying paragliders and then hang gliders in the late 80’s. A few months after his first flight he quit his job to become an instructor and has made a life of flying. He was a test pilot in the 90’s, moved to Canada after going there on a vacation and never returning home where he opened a school and eventually competed in the Red Bull X-Alps four times. In this episode we explore how Max learned how to fly into the wind and why all flying should be approached with mindful training; where most new pilots make mistakes; why getting into flying too fast leads to many people getting scared and leaving the sport…

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Episode 48- Bonus Podcast! Gavin McClurg and the 2017 X-Alps

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The Red Bull live tracking is great, but it misses out on all the behind-the-scenes and in this talk we dive into what the fans don’t get to see. We talk training, supplements, our decision on using the nightpass the first night, mistakes made, good moves, dicey launches, crazy weather and how the 2017 race was the most brutal yet. In 12 days I did 16 1/2 marathons, climbed the height of Everest 4 times (34,000 meters of vertical ascent), flew over 1,000 km- and I was still 308 km from goal! Only two athletes made it, Chrigel Maurer won for his 5th straight time, and rookie Benoit Outers made it in just before the time expired. 5 athletes were eliminated and 7 withdrew due to injury or exhaustion.

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