If you go in hard paragliding, hangliding, speedflying or skydiving are you covered? Many, many people find this a very murky subject. Traveling abroad? What about medivac? What if you need a heli rescue? Repatriation to your home country for care? This article should help you out.
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We’ve got a VERY special episode for you this Holiday Season. Ozone test pilot and world cup crusher Russ Ogden, one of the great living legends of paragliding and the inspiration for the Cloudbase Mayhem podcast and one of the most-mentioned pilots in the podcast gives us two solid hours that I am calling a Masters Class in paragliding. This is the most information dense episode to date. There isn’t much we don’t cover here-
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“…Then, your job is to wake up, eat, stay alive, make progress, don’t die. That’s when the world starts to become clear. I felt a real sense of place in Alaska. There were times when I knew for a fact that no person had ever set foot where I was. I had a real feeling of discovery – not like Christopher Columbus, just an incredible sense of being able to appreciate true wilderness.”
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Michael “Micky” Sigel began flying before most people learn how to drive a car. His early talent and passion got him on the Advance team when he was just sixteen years old. These days Micky makes a living as a test pilot for Gin Gliders and has been a dominant force in the Swiss League and the World Cup for nearly a decade. In this episode we catch up on what went down with the Gin factory last year in Northern Korea; what a test pilot actually does; how the Swiss League turns out so much incredible talent; the importance of mentors and how where you fly affects the pilot you can become; the local advantage and the traps of flying the unknown vs the known; what separates the best from the good; the importance of mental strength and believing in yourself; the importance of a glider in a competition and the importance of choosing a glider that suits the task- and a LOT more.
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Larry Tudor was known as the “Dark Prince” back in the day. We roll the clock way back to 1973 when Larry learned how to fly his first hanglider in the seated position (yep, pre-prone days) on a wing that got a worse glide ratio than today’s smallest speed wings. The stories in this episode are going to make your head spin. Remember when hangies flew the Owens every day in the summer? Guys tumbling out of the sky and not using reserves? Flying without instruments? Larry was the first person to fly over 200 miles (in 1983!) and was the first person to fly over 300 miles. His 308 mile record from Hobbs, New Mexico in 1994 wasn’t beaten for a decade. In the mid 80’s Larry was widely regarded as one of the best hang gliders in the world and this conversation covers a lot of awesome ground. Scary close calls, whorehouses, guns, cowboys, flying in tornados, trouble with the police, flying with air force bombers and early towing nightmares- this podcast is a glimpse into a crazy world of the pioneers who laid the ground in free flight.
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This post is about some of the random but critical things that go into the lead-up to the event. Obviously you fly as much as you can and when you aren’t flying you’re pounding your body. I’m not going to talk about that aspect as that should be pretty obvious, and the physical training I do would be five blog posts just to touch the surface and probably of very little use for 99.9% of pilots so we’ll leave that a mystery. And lets face it, you would have to be pretty twisted to want to do it! What I thought might be interesting is all the side stuff that is so critical when it comes to having a successful campaign.
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Max Marien broke the Infinity Tumbling record after jumping out of a helicopter in 2012, going right up and over his wing an incredible 374 times. Max started flying at the tender age of 12 and makes his living flying tandems at the Torrey Pines Glider port. He’s been frequently requested on the show and this talk is awesome. Whether you are pursuing acro or not, there’s a lot of great knowledge and advice here, including how risk changes after you have kids; how to get into acro; the most common cause of accidents; the most dangerous maneuver (you might be surprised); the scariest maneuver; a ton of info on reserves and their use; safe ways to progress and a lot more. Enjoy!
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World-famous climber turned paragliding addict Cedar Wright returns to the Mayhem to describe…well a bit of mayhem! A year ago I sat down with Cedar on the podcast, who was 6 months into his sky addiction and as we’re both in Banff for the film festival we thought it would be fun to find out how this past year has gone. He and his learning partner Matt Segal flew off the highest mountain in Mexico, Pico De Orizaba, which is the centerpiece of Cedar’s new film “The Fledglings”, in partnership with the North Face and Niviuk.
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In this episode I sit down with former British team pilot and 15 year instructor and Alps guide Kelly Farina to discuss his new comprehensive book on paragliding, “Mastering Paragliding.” This fantastic read is and A to Z encyclopedia of flying. Many concepts were completely new to me- the 4/90 rule, the Golden Rule of thermalling and gliding, lee side warnings, becoming a “natural”, the air mass spectrum and a lot more.
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“My muscles had adapted to the strain; my lungs were full of pure, clean air; my mind wasn’t clouded by frivolous responsibilities. I regaled in my one simple task, the task of staying alive.”
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