Author Archives: Gavin McClurg
Episode 41- Chris Santacroce and Set Ups for Success
Chris Santacroce has been a pillar in human flight for nearly thirty years. A long time Red Bull Air Force athlete; co-owner and founder of Superfly Paragliding in Utah; founder of Project Airtime which allows the disabled to fly; total air Jedi on anything that flies- from powered trikes to wingsuits and everything in between, Chris has been one of the most requested guests for the show and now here it is.
Read More...Episode 40- Bill Belcourt Your Questions Answered!
And here it is! The long-awaited show hosted by Bill Belcourt, dedicated 100% to your questions. We asked fans of the show to send us any questions related to flying so the Yoda of the sky, Bill Belcourt could answer them in the unique way that only Bill can. We talk about how to deal with turbulence, creating better headspace, how to mitigate intermediate syndrome, how to gaggle fly, how to deal with negative people in a positive way (ie avoiding ground suck), when to leave a thermal, techniques for landing backwards, how to pick the good days, team flying, when to launch in a thermal cycle and a LOT more! Enjoy!
Read More...Episode 39- Antoine Laurens and a Lifetime of Life Lessons
Antoine Laurens began flying in 1992 when he was just seventeen years old. He’s lived a life of adventure and flying has been a way of life for the last two and half decades. One of the world’s great vol-biv pilots Antoine crossed over a 1,000 km route of the Himalayas (the film trailer of the “Himalayan Odyssey” can be seen here) and was part of the small team I joined in 2012 when we flew from the south end of the Sierra range to the Oregon border. Antoine has done some of the longest, most wild vol-biv trips that have ever been accomplished.
Read More...Episode 38- Jeff Shapiro and cracking the code
“If you believe you can do it, you can do it. But that doesn’t mean it will happen tomorrow. You have to do the work, nothing replaces mileage (or in this case, air time).” Little nuggets of wisdom like this is why Jeff Shapiro returns to the Cloudbase Mayhem in this amazing follow up to our first podcast a year and a half ago. The first time we spoke Jeff was just learning how to paraglide after spending a lifetime and thousands of hours hang gliding. We catch up to explore how his progression is going, how the new aircraft is opening all kinds of new adventures, we revisit his decision to wingsuit basejump again after losing so many friends to the sport, and in true Jeff Shapiro style- talk about life and joy and wonder in a way that only Jeff can.
Read More...Episode 37- The Groundhandling Podcast
Ground handling is the cornerstone of being a good, safe pilot. But of all the most important foundational building blocks you can practice it is often the most neglected. For many pilots “groundhandling” is pulling the wing up and getting off the hill. This is only the first step. Many of our listeners have asked for a specific ground handling episode and now here it is!
Read More...UK Film Tour and Master Classes with Gavin announced!
Cross Country Magazine is hosting three film tour dates in the UK in April (5th, 6th, 7th, 8th, 9th) and two masters classes at Jocky Sanderson’s Flight Park in the Lakes District (8th and 9th) where we will have a full day of instruction, flying, talking about the X-Alps, expedition packing, vol-biv, equipment and a lot more and then a film screening of North of Known
Read More...Episode 36- Nick Neynens and the art of Vol Biv
“If the conditions are too gnarly, don’t land, climb and get to better air!” Thoughts like this from Nick Neynens are what allowed him to finish the 2015 Red Bull X-Alps in 10th place. Nick has an untraditional approach and it works- he’s flown vol-biv all over the world and has competed in the X-Pyr and X-Berg as well. In this episode we learn more about his untraditional approach and talk about risk justification, progression, meteorology, and using sandals in the hardest race on Earth. A special episode with a special pilot.
Read More...Episode 35- Christina Kolb and becoming a complete pilot
Christina Kolb is the current female world acro champion and one of the few women in the world who has perfected the Infinite tumble. In Annecy this year she won the female class and was 12th overall- an incredible achievement. In this episode we visit and revisit the cause of many accidents and how preventable they are, how to learn acro, the importance of SIV and ground handling, why altitude is more important in many cases than water, best and worst advice, how to reduce stress on launch, and a lot of advice for beginners and how to avoid the “lemming affect.”
Read More...Save the Date! North of Known coming to a Theatre near You!
I’m taking North of Known on a short film tour starting February 18th. Here are the tour dates and venues and links to the event pages on Facebook, which have the links to buy tickets in advance. I’ll give a little fun backstory to the film before we start (film length is 52 minutes), then a Q and A afterwards. The film premiered at the Banff Mountain Film Festival in November and just recently won “Best Documentary” at FLIC in Montana. I hope you’ll join me, I promise these will be fun evenings and I promise- the film and footage will blow you away! A portion of the proceeds at all of the events will benefit the Foundation for Free Flight. We expect all venues to sell out, so make sure to get tickets in advance.
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