Charlie Baughman has been flying hang gliders since 1973. That’s 47 years…and he’s still going strong. In 2011 at the age of 64 Charlie broke the Oregon state record (which still holds) when he flew 218 miles into Idaho, and then did a very styly self retrieve. We have it on good authority that Charlie was the first person in North American to figure out how to thermal, and possibly the world. Charlie started sky diving in the 60’s at the age of 22, then began hang gliding on Lookout Mountain in Colorado when the very first hang gliders were built. In this episode we talk about the early gliders and the early hang gliding scene in places like Aspen and Telluride, Colorado; the insane number of accidents on gliders like the Chandelle comp; some of his epic retrieves; flying without instruments or a rescue; the “mass migration” to Salt Lake City to fly the Point of the Mountain; and flying in thermal wave. Read that last bit again- thermal wave. Yes, it’s a thing. I got most of my questions for this one from the Dark Prince himself, Larry Tudor. What a riot- enjoy!
Support the Podcast
A buck an episode, that's all we ask
If you like what you hear, please consider becoming a subscriber to ensure our high-quality content continues. You can also help contribute to a healthier, greener planet through our partnership with Our Forest.
See our donation and subscription options here.
Listen to the Podcast
Listen to us on all the most popular podcast platforms:
1 [00:00:23] Hi there everybody. Welcome to another episode of Cloudbase mayhem. Couple things of housekeeping here to kick us off. The first is I have some friends over at at Cando, a K a N D o.com. They make skydiving accessories and they sent me some stuff just to see if it would be applicable in our world. Rang letters, bear letters, that kind of thing.
1 [00:00:45] Uh, they make some really cool gloves. These are not warm gloves, but more like summer gloves, ground hand gloves or I can fly type of thing, but really nicely put together and they make sunglasses and a bunch of other stuff. They're sunglasses are really good for keeping the air out of your eyes. Obviously, you know, like for skydiving so you don't get a bunch of watery eyes and you can keep your vision. So I've always worn goggles when I fly fair gliders, but these would be quite a bit slimmer and less weight.
1 [00:01:10] So take a look at those. They are not a sponsor of the show and not a sponsor at me. I'm just doing them a favor to let you know about them. If you also go to their website and want anything, if you put in the discount code Gavin 20 you'll get 20% off. So check that out. But thanks guys for sending that stuff over to me.
1 [00:01:30] The other bit of housekeeping is we did this show a couple of weeks ago now at a time and this one gets released on covid and sat down my sister and my good buddy Terry O'Connor who is an ER doc here in town, our town remains one of the worst counties in the country. I think we're on the top five right now and obviously that's per capita, it's not like New York here, but uh, it is certainly raging and the scale of this thing is just mind boggling.
1 [00:01:57] We've took us 30 days to go from one desk to a thousand in the U S and took us two days to go from a thousand to 2000. So we seem to be on the exponential curve of that right now and everything in that show, if you go back and listen to that, if you missed it has been pretty accurate. Um, my sister has been reporting on this since the very beginning and Terry is certainly really in the thick of things.
1 [00:02:21] So I've been really encouraged to see that our community are flying community for the most part is taken this really seriously. I'm not seeing anything on X contest these days and I really appreciate that. So thank you everybody for thinking about the greater good. Thinking about our healthcare workers, this thing certainly is serious and I don't know when we're going to be able to return to the skies as we should be this time of year, but I think we need to, well I don't think we obviously need to be key.
1 [00:02:51] We need to keep thinking about all of our healthcare workers and resources and just the greater good right now and at some point we will. So I hope you're all enjoying this silent quiet time to the best you can. I'm certainly enjoying my kitchen quite a bit lately and cooking and hanging out with my family and I know many people are going to be very negatively impacted by this.
1 [00:03:17] Certainly my business, my boat businesses, that's a whole, that's a pretty interesting story that both got to the Seychelles a few days ago and they've completely closed their borders so we can't even get the boat into the country. Obviously we're not going to be operating trips for a very long period of time. But yeah, it just certainly a very interesting time. So my guest today, this is not dark whatsoever.
1 [00:03:40] Then the opposite side of that, and my guest today is Charlie Baughman. He has been flying hang gliders for 47 years. We started in 1973 along with his good friend Larry tutor, who we had on the show a couple of years ago, one of the more enjoyable and entertaining fantastic talks we've had on the show. And by Larry's, Larry's insists that he was the first person, certainly in North America and maybe maybe the world that figured out how to thermal.
1 [00:04:06] So he was one of the originals. He comes from a skydiving background. So Charlie skydive back in the 60s he had been skydiving for quite a while when he got into hang gliding and 73 and so it was kind of natural, that canopy experience, he just, he picked it up faster than anybody else. And so we hear stories about his early days in Colorado and then the great migration out to salt Lake and fly in the point.
1 [00:04:28] And then now he lives out in band. He moved out there in 2000 and very recently 2011 broke the state record, which still holds, flew 218 miles into Idaho. And he still chasing analysis. So that was, yeah, she was 64 at the time and now he's in his early seventies and he's still chasing it. So proper legend.
1 [00:04:48] This was a really fun talk and we talk about things like, well, not the best flight he talks about he ever had was flying thermal wave. Johnny knows a thing. So lots of interesting topics, a lot of great stories, some fun retrieve stories and I think you're going to enjoy it. So hang in there everybody please be safe. Continued taking the social distancing and all that.
1 [00:05:09] Seriously. Get out, get some sun, get some exercise to carry your immune system. And some point we'll get through this thing. Thank you. Enjoy.
2 [00:05:26] Charlie I can't tell you, I'm kind of, I'm actually shaking a little bit. I'm so excited to talk to you. I spent a good portion of this afternoon talking to Larry tutor on the phone and he has sent me a ton of questions and it just made me think about the fantastic podcast we had with him a couple of years ago. He and I have become really good friends.
2 [00:05:46] I didn't know that you two shared so much history. So, uh, we just, before we started talking there, if we've got a, I got my math right. I said 50, but you've been for 47 years, is that right?
0 [00:06:00] Okay.
3 [00:06:00] Yeah, this fall it'll be 47 years.
2 [00:06:04] That's incredible. And so the first thing I wanted to ask you is, Larry said today that he is absolutely convinced that you are the first person, certainly in North America and maybe the world that figured out thermally, can you take us back? Is that true?
3 [00:06:23] Well, uh, I had another person telling me that too. So it may be, it is, I don't know. Uh, we were flying standards at that time and I had read some sailplane magazines about them circling in thermals and I go, well, all we're doing is just flying around.
3 [00:06:43] We're not really circling and thermals. And even though a standard at a terrible sink rate, we could, if we got a strong enough thermal, we could circle in. And so I started trying it and it worked.
2 [00:06:56] And, and you were in Colorado at the time?
3 [00:06:59] Yes, yes. I was at, uh, one guy mentioned it at Telluride when we were flying there, uh, off the East side. And, uh, I just, it was just getting natural to me and, uh, a brought it up to me and I said, well, yeah, I thought I'd try with the sail plans we're doing.
3 [00:07:19] So that's what I started doing.
2 [00:07:23] Hey, and you saw that visibly with sail planes or something you read about like where you guys, you know, you, you could just see them flying around and, and getting up.
3 [00:07:34] Well, yeah, I don't think I had contact with chilblains yet. I think I read it. Uh, I don't really remember. Probably read it in a magazine or something.
2 [00:07:43] And what was the, so give me, give me a timeframe. Here is a 71, 72.
3 [00:07:50] Well, it would have been 73 because that's when we were flying standards. That's the first first type of glider that was really manufacturer and they started mass producing them. Everybody was flying. Those things, those deaths reps
2 [00:08:06] and Larry was talking about, you guys would, you would launch and you are the only one that would kind of do this move where you'd fly around the other side of the mountain and just do this like fly on the wall move. Because then you could relaunch again really quickly.
3 [00:08:22] Oh yeah. I look out mountain out of golden, Colorado. There's a mountain more than I am on it. And I really never wanted to go down. Now I hated to go down. So I figured out how to launch and then fly around the mountain. The mountain was a kind of uh, uh, Collin shaped, so it was easy to fly around it. And then you just fly right up the slope on the backside in Atlanta is that appeal, Lanny and made it really easy.
3 [00:08:49] So I would take off and if I wasn't getting up, I'd fly around and land cause I didn't want to go down and I could make like 10 flights a day and then not go down. Although sometimes I should've kept working the lift because I didn't really need to land. But I went for the security of, uh, not going down.
2 [00:09:11] And I'm sure you were doing this with a very amateur and GPS and while they didn't even have GPS back then, but I'm being facetious here, you didn't have anything right?
3 [00:09:21] But yeah, I did fly a lot without a very on mother and, uh, I just use my eyesight, you know, on the side of the Hill to, to judge that.
2 [00:09:30] Cause, I mean Larry talked about it, you know, watching you was like watching magic and he said just, you know, there was everybody else in back then. These, you know, the hang community was huge. You know, this was, this was booming and everybody was doing it and everybody's out. But you were the one that was going up.
3 [00:09:50] Well I figured out how to, how to get up and stay up and landed on top. Nobody had that figured out right away. But, uh, it didn't take too long for everybody to catch you up to my techniques. And like Larry said, he was watching me one day doing that and I heard it on his podcast and he says, I can do that.
2 [00:10:16] And I understand you came from a sky diving background re you still jumping at this time. And how did those two things coincide and did that give you, do you feel like that gave you kind of some canopy knowledge and some air knowledge that maybe some of the other pilots didn't have?
3 [00:10:31] Oh, definitely. I felt like I could go fly a hang glider with no problem. I just had to learn how to take off cause stalls were similar, you know, and it was very similar. I had, well I had a, uh, they call him, ran their parachutes. They were similar in, uh, in, uh, not really well structure as paragliders are today.
3 [00:10:54] They didn't have the glide ratio, but they were big. They have these big cells in the front and they were ran their parachutes. And I flew those a lot, uh, before I started hang gliding so I, I, uh, had a feel for it and I didn't even take lessons in hang gliding I just jumped right into it. And the funny thing is, it was pretty wild in those days that we went up to the mountain one day and I have this new glider and I had to ask somebody to help me set up for, and I didn't really have any trouble flying.
2 [00:11:33] How long did you skydive for?
3 [00:11:36] I've got, uh, seven years, 700 jumps. And it really taught me a lot about taking chances and equipment that was dangerous and well, you know, manufacturers will push their equipment even though it's dangerous. I just, I just spoke my foot down on stuff like that and, and hang gliding and it was, it was happening all the time.
3 [00:11:59] And, uh, I would try to avoid it or warn people to stay away from that glider because, you know, in the early days we had the dive problem and some stuff was worse than others. And until some gliders came out that had left lines like the Moyes am even better was Roy Haggard's, uh, truncated tip, which was revolutionary really.
3 [00:12:25] So those gliders a positive pitch moment in them and there were so much safer. And, and then the gliding has just got better from there as far as safety goes. And then the other thing that came along was the mandate and letter manufacturers association, the witch, there was so many people's Diane and having problems with gliders if the manufacturer's association came along and said, we've got to start testing these things.
3 [00:12:53] So they tested them for strength and they dusted on for their pitch stability and what from that on the glider has got. So say it was wonderful thing to happen.
2 [00:13:05] How'd you get the name Hawk? Man? Charlie Hochman
3 [00:13:09] uh, I don't know.
2 [00:13:14] Okay.
3 [00:13:14] I flew pretty good in those days. Uh, cause I think I was ahead of everyone, but you know, I wasn't magical forever there. He came along and showed what magical was. You know, his, his line was magical.
2 [00:13:30] The, the dark Branson and the Hawk man, you guys sound like a heck of a team.
3 [00:13:35] I don't know where the dark reds game of from. I, I don't know if I'd ever heard of that. What does that mean?
2 [00:13:40] I, you know, I remember I read so many articles about Larry before, before I actually talked to them and I, you know what, now it's been a few years, I don't remember where that did come from. I get to check in with them that I think it was, you know, it was like this black magic, you know, that he was, he was quiet and he just would just crush it.
2 [00:14:01] But I think it was kind of like mysterious. And I dunno if that's, if that I'm fine. I don't even know if that's even remotely accurate, but that's how I remember it.
3 [00:14:08] Yeah, he was, he was a very quiet guy, you know, and really enter a room naked dude. Yeah. The confidence to do everything on his own and fly by himself. And, and uh, he was really smart, a really good chess player. Uh, and he was lightweight, I have to say. I think that helped him a whole bunch. He had a really good climber, a really good, always had a really good climb rate.
3 [00:14:33] It's hard to keep anywhere near him.
2 [00:14:36] Tell me, tell me about the, the culture back then. Uh, you know, what, what was it like and tell your IDE and golden and, you know, cause there was a lot of people participating back then. I mean, it just must have been, it sounds to me very much like the wild West. It was just like you and like you said, a lot of carnage deal.
2 [00:14:57] But
3 [00:14:58] yeah. Uh, since it was a new sport and, uh, everybody was interested in it, angular, buzz or kind of like gods, I mean, I might be exaggerating a little bit, but it was a, a really exciting time and we had lots of party. We're really young and add tons of energy.
3 [00:15:20] Uh, you couldn't stop me from going fly and I, I was almost flying every day and just about almost any condition. But I, I have some background in skydiving and I knew you could die doing this. And so I did have my limits, although I have too many stories to tell you broadly about close calls.
3 [00:15:41] I don't want to get into death too much. I'd like to do though.
2 [00:15:44] Yeah. No, I don't, I don't want, I don't want to either know. There we've got plenty of positive stuff to talk about. Um, well, but Brett, just before we do, I did promise Larry that I would ask you about the Shan Chantelle comp or the Chandelle comp.
3 [00:16:00] Okay. Uh, that's one of the gliders that was super dangerous. Uh, I stayed away from it. I knew from what I was reading, all the guys that were dying on it, I think 13 guys died. And what happened on those Chandelle was it would get into a steep enough dive that it would just make all the Luft dive.
3 [00:16:23] It would not come out. It would just be, you'd be gone in at whatever, 70 miles an hour or whatever and you couldn't stop it. And we didn't have parachutes back then. They did modify it later. So it wasn't quite as dangerous, but it did have a little better performance than most gliders. So it was popular, but yet it was, you know, extremely dangerous.
3 [00:16:47] Did he te, did Larry tell you about that or he did he just want to hear it?
2 [00:16:50] No, he just wanted to hear your stories. He just kind of thought it'd be fun to hear about things like the Telluride air man's rendezvous and the fellow feathers. And you know, these just, uh, I've been reading a hang glider books lately. There's this, the one that, uh, Tim Delaney sent me. The, the Eagle's perch Eagle's nest. It is the funniest book I've ever read.
2 [00:17:12] It is so great. But it talks about this, this era of mostly you guys flying in in Colorado.
3 [00:17:20] Well, we'll tell you, right. Uh, mate that they have every year. It was just spectacular cause this, the surroundings are just so beautiful. And the talent is like a old mining town with boardwalks and he's just stroll up and down the streets at night and stop in and walk into the bars and say hi to these people and then walk onto the next one.
3 [00:17:43] And it was, the atmosphere was just incredible. It was, you can't, I doubt if it's like that now, but I, I don't know. I haven't been there for quite a while. And then, and then the mates would be, you know, uh, uh, well part of the time it was on a lower launch, which wasn't too exciting, but if they went up high off gold Hill, uh, you know, I think they're launching it at 12,000 feet.
3 [00:18:08] And so you better run, run fast and the landing area was not good either as 9,000 feet. So that's really thin air for and glad or land in. And so you have to be pretty good at it. And, uh, other than that, thermals were strong. It could fly all around the Canyon. And look at these 14,000 foot peaks.
3 [00:18:30] Uh, it was really beautiful at night. You go party at the bars and it was a really wonderful atmosphere.
2 [00:18:39] Wow. Uh, in, in back then, are you still getting up super tall? You know, where you, you guys kind of figured out, uh, you know, you've obviously figured out thermally at that point, but it, were you getting up? Are you using oxygen and that kind of thing?
3 [00:18:54] I think we did. No, we did early comps. We were getting extreme headaches and when we'd come back down and it wasn't real good
2 [00:19:03] and then it won't, what point did you guys start to, you know, have reserves and I can't imagine flying with, with just no reserve there. I mean there obviously wasn't any SIV and must've been a very naked feeling or was it you guys, I mean there you didn't have any Natalie reason to think of them cause they didn't exist.
3 [00:19:23] Yeah. Yeah we did. And we didn't know what we were missing at first. And then the idea came up, you know, we've got to have a curse. You and bill bene made this thing called a 10 line, will you call it a 10 line? It was small, it wasn't very strong, but it's better. Nothing. And we snap those up like crazy. And then not long after that, somebody started making a regular parachute type parachutes, you know, the Chronicles 20 Gore Chronicles.
3 [00:19:51] And then the bags weren't designed out. Well at first they had to change where the uh, handle was in relay or whether rubber bands were in relation to the handles so it wouldn't accidentally loaded. And so he got better bags and we got swivels and that's about all that took. And then of course later on they developed a PDA pulled down apex, which was better.
3 [00:20:13] And then they came out with a LAR and the quantum, which are just beautiful shaped her shoes as you probably know. And so anyway, we, we snapped up those parachutes right away. Soon as they were coming out.
2 [00:20:27] Was there kind of, was their instruction in schools at this point or was it still all everybody's teaching them themselves?
3 [00:20:34] You mean as far as just learning how to take off?
2 [00:20:36] Yeah, yeah.
3 [00:20:38] I think there are always low schools, but I don't think the schools were, I mean they just got better and better. They, I don't know if they were that good to with, but they got better and better.
2 [00:20:50] And w was hang gliding in this period, was it your job is, is it how you lived or where you just kind of the camp for Yosemite version of, of hang gliders, just you guys live in, out of your cars and dirt bagging it and flying as much as you can?
3 [00:21:07] Uh, yes and no. I was, uh, I flow as much as I could. I didn't really have time to work and I did work, uh, build the analysis part time and the rest of the time I was pretty much flying most of the time. And then I started going to some comps and getting sponsored a little bit.
3 [00:21:27] Yeah. I flew most of the time living in my little living in my van.
2 [00:21:33] And I understand you and Larry, I don't know if that was together, but in your, in your post that you put up about, you know, your record flight in 2011, which we've got a long way to get before we get there, but um, that you guys were living in salt Lake for a while. You went out, you went from Colorado out to salt Lake.
3 [00:21:49] Yes. I think uh, there was a mass migration from Colorado to his assault to the salt Lake area. Okay. A lot of pilots from Colorado just moved right out there cause that was the pretty much the Mecca at the time. I mean there was, there must have been 15 fly insights around that salt Lake area. Although most of the flying I did was at either the point of the mountain at inspiration or Heber cause they were all the closest ones
2 [00:22:18] and we're, we're is kind of a big deal back then. I mean you had, you had a lot of comps where you guys travel around. We go into the Owens and going to Aspen and
3 [00:22:26] yeah, I mostly just went to the, the closest ones I was, I wasn't, I didn't have enough money to be running around and meets all the time. I just want to whatever ones I thought I might like. I mean, Larry, he was sponsored. He started going to a lot of cops and he did well and he was more interested in breaking the record world records though.
3 [00:22:49] And he caused the traded on those a lot in the summer.
2 [00:22:51] What was kinda your focus?
3 [00:22:53] Well, I did focus on, uh, state records quite a bit. Um, and then when I did start going to the Owens Valley, I was hoping to do a world record, but you have to get conditions too. And I, I really, I didn't live out there in the summer like they already did and you know, pick the best days and go for it.
3 [00:23:14] That's what you really need to do. He would take the whole summer off or at least a month or two and then have a driver and everything to prepare him for the task. He was very gold goal oriented for that. And he broke a lot of records too.
2 [00:23:30] Yeah, he broke a ton of records. He asked when he was listening to him off. It was just don't and then I did this and then how it is. It's amazing. It's amazing history.
3 [00:23:39] Yes it is.
2 [00:23:40] And so salt Lake was your, was your home for a bit? Would you stay there in the winter too or would you go down to other places to fly to Florida and Arizona and that kind of thing?
3 [00:23:50] Not too much. I, I uh, I would just stay there in a winter, uh, in, uh, salt Lake area and then I moved out here in 2000
2 [00:23:59] out the band? Yes. And was that to follow flying?
3 [00:24:04] Yes, kind of. But I also wanted to get away from, uh, the population was just blooming and it's all like, it was getting too much for me and they were building all these houses on the point of the mouth and just wrecking the place. So I said, I'm leaving.
2 [00:24:20] Have you, I mean, when you started flying in 73 until now, is it been pretty solid all the way through?
3 [00:24:27] Oh yeah, pretty, pretty solid. I mean, I, I do less flying over year just cause I'm older, you know, and I just, I started going more for quality days, you know, I'd go out there and went, Oh yeah, it looks like a pretty good, pretty good day to day and the academies or Buffy and beautiful.
3 [00:24:47] I'm going. But uh, I didn't just go up there, uh, on nanny all day, maybe only once a week now.
2 [00:24:55] All right, well let's, let's, let's, let's check more of the, of the history here. He also wanted me to ask you about a time you flew out over the Uintas and landed, landed so deep that you had to bring your dog in to get your glider.
3 [00:25:09] Okay. I added two flights. Downy you in is that I thought were pretty cool. Uh, the one, the one we're now one in that I got stuck in the snow was, uh, and kind of in the late spring. And it was, yeah, I think it was April. And it was actually from inspiration over to the Inez and I thought I could just cross over and continue to the Northeast.
3 [00:25:37] But I ended up landing on some pretty high terrain on and really deep snow. And uh, I think a flight was like only 80 miles or 85 miles or something. And I packed up the glider and I walked out, but I was post Halloween and it was just killing me. There was so much effort to walk, walk in this deep snow and I was just trying to get down the mountain.
3 [00:26:01] I was walking down the North face and trying to stay on a road and I came to this sign that pointed to different directions and I wasn't sure which one I picked the wrong one. It didn't take me down to town where I've thought I could be okay. So I had to spend the night and it was pretty bad.
3 [00:26:22] My legs were soaking wet from the hike and it was way below freezing that night. So I put the, uh, I put my head on my feet, I took my shoe when she was in socks off and put my mittens on my feet, which really helped out my feet. And I stuck my feet in a harness, tried to make a bed out of it as best I could have.
3 [00:26:44] But, uh, it was so cold. I was shaking all night and I guess it's a good thing that I didn't get worse than shaking, cause then you're a hyperthermic maybe die. But, so I was shaking all night. I didn't go to sleep and I was going, Oh, please come up son. I just wanted to see that sun started coming up and it just wouldn't come up.
3 [00:27:05] Finally it came up, I jumped down, put my wet shoes and tennis shoes and socks on. And once I started hiking down, my feet got warm and I was fine. And meanwhile I'm on. My wife had already called search and rescue, so I was, uh, called her up and she came, got me.
3 [00:27:27] And then we had to go back and get the glider. So, uh, and a friend and we and my wife got on some free Hills skis, which I hadn't done before and this was a neat experience. It was a couple of weeks later or so. The more snow it melted, I rigged up a glider container with the skis on the bottom.
3 [00:27:50] I thought we put the glider and, and bring my Husky along the pole. And he did. He pulled it and we skied back and had a good time. I ain't got the bladder out. Uh, the other flight was a lot more successful. I, uh, took the, uh, straight East Ralph I have, my intention was a flight on the unit, uh, which are, you know, high peaks.
3 [00:28:14] I think they're up to like 13,000 or so. And there was a nice club street on it. It was pretty gutsy though, because when you get on the Ridge, there's all, there's all these fines running out North and South, but they're five, 10 miles long, you know, so there's no place to land in those canyons.
3 [00:28:35] Every time I start losing Altiva, I'd fly out a spine to the South until I got up again. And then I go back into the main Ridge and I kept doing that until I got to the, uh, eh, maybe it's green river pizza,
2 [00:28:49] green river just past, uh, just past a flaming Gorge.
3 [00:28:54] Yeah. So I landed in the parking lot of the pizza and that's where I waited for my wife to come get me. That was over a hundred miles.
2 [00:29:03] You guys in your pizza huts, you remember from Larry show? They know when he was flying from a Hobbs in New Mexico when he got the big record, you know, when he went, I think it was 300. Uh, yeah. That's when he went 300 miles. He called it before. He'd never been to this place that he flew in Oklahoma or something and E, but before he took off, he said, I'm going to land at the pizza hut.
2 [00:29:27] And he did.
3 [00:29:28] Yeah, he was really good at calculating all that stuff. He never went. The wind direction was, and he'd get on a map and figure out where he wants to get to and, and he could do that really well.
2 [00:29:40] Tell me some more. What, what's a story that, you know, when you're sitting around with the grandchildren that, ah, you know, there was this one time,
3 [00:29:52] well, I don't know if they'd understand it. Favor flights is, uh, the thermal wave that I got into applying mountain. It was totally different than anything I'd ever run into. And it was just mesmerizing. It was, and I had a camera on my wing and I was shooting glories, uh, on the cloud that was below me and I was at the bottom in a thermal wave and I was getting 2000 feet over the Cumulus and the, you know, this might happen on the coast or something, but in the dry desert, that just is something that just never happens.
3 [00:30:32] The thermals were pretty good there, setting up and apparently the wind hits the line of thermals and just gets pushed up and over and forms are waves and the wind was also increasing at higher altitude and it must've been unstable too because the, I was just flying in this way that was so super smooth.
3 [00:30:54] It was just so much fun. And I had to dive down. They get to the Cumulus cause I wanted to take pictures of their glory, so I would have, I would make passes on the side of this Cumulus and take pictures of the glory. And then it was like Ridge runner and I, I'd have to turn around and do a three 60 and make another pass on the cloud.
3 [00:31:18] That was the most that kept me busy. Otherwise that he's just been floating up high and this super smooth wave lift. Gary ASA is the one that told me it was a, it was a thermal wave. And uh, I actually had that happen to me again, but it wasn't as strong, uh, the next year and both times it was in the fall.
3 [00:31:38] Uh, I guess when wastes are more waves are reforming, I actually could see a, a wave cloud on the cascades that evening. So it was a sign that there was waves forming, although there was no cloud. I was in no clouded up there above the, above the Cumulus. There was nothing there but wonderful air.
2 [00:32:00] How high do you think you could have gone in that?
3 [00:32:04] I was getting about 2000 over, I think 12,000 was the top of that. And the cues were about 10,000.
2 [00:32:11] I don't, I've never heard this term. I didn't know that you could get wave off of thermals.
3 [00:32:18] I didn't either.
2 [00:32:19] Wow.
3 [00:32:21] It was brand new to me. A weird thing is nobody else could get up there. They were, yeah, they were getting, you know, eight or eight, eight, eight, five or so. But I guess I broke through and got into the upper stuff cause there was no trouble standing up there. Once you got up there, I was telling those guys down there, get your butt up here.
3 [00:32:42] It's wonderful. And they didn't. Of course, you know, when you hear that kind of stuff and you're struggling, you're, you're going, ah, shut up. Leave me alone.
2 [00:32:56] Alright. Are you still flying with any of the guys you flew with back in the 70s?
3 [00:33:01] Well, that would've been, uh, in Colorado. I don't think any of them are out here. Oh, well except for my teeny, I flew with him for a while. Uh, he's a great pilot. Uh, he was from Colorado and then he moved to Utah just like me and Larry. And he came here and he kind of retired from flying.
3 [00:33:23] He's still MPS in Lakeview right now, but as for the rest of that group, uh, no, I don't think any of them are here.
2 [00:33:31] And you, yeah, he, he had the, he had the record and Utah from Cedar city 150, seven miles. I'm just looking at your notes now and then you broke that record in 93 from Heber into Wyoming. 178 miles. I mean, you guys were going so far.
3 [00:33:50] Yeah, that was what, 93
2 [00:33:52] yeah,
3 [00:33:53] that was a really, I liked that flight.
2 [00:33:58] You're going out into the Wyoming flats.
3 [00:34:00] Yeah, I'm not, the only obstacle is where all those minds that they have out there, you know, and there they got fences around him and stuff. So you gotta be careful. There's a lot of those out there. Uh, other than that, there's pretty small ridges, uh, that, you know, are pumping thermals off them and you really don't, I didn't really figure out exactly where to catch thermals out there, but I usually go for a little mountain or a Ridge and uh, stay alone.
3 [00:34:29] I a stand along interstate 80 and I landed along interstate 80. So, Oh, I've got to tell you what happened to me after I landed. I was amped up and we're walking down the freeway. It was dark or really close to dark and I was trying to hitchhike and then, you know, a truck would go by me.
3 [00:34:49] And then about five seconds later I hear all this noise and that truck had rolled over on my side of the highway and there was, was rumbling along on the side of the truck, just skimmed along making all kinds of noise. And apparently they fell asleep. I walked over and looked at him and there was already a bunch of cars stopped, but that have rolled over on me.
2 [00:35:12] Holy cow. If you imagined flying 178 miles in a hang glider and then getting rolled over on by a truck and a freelance, there was something wrong with that whole,
3 [00:35:23] it wasn't a bad, terrible.
2 [00:35:25] Now in that, in that article, in the band paper when you broke the record in 2011, so that's just fears back here. You flew a hundred, you flew 218 miles from pine into Idaho and neck. You got to go farther, man. You gotta get to catch him next time and we will throw you the best party ever.
2 [00:35:46] No one's ever flown even from Boise to here. So that would be, that's one of our real goals. Uh, Nate scales that are pretty nifty flight from Boise, kind of around the corner, but no one's actually ever gotten here. But that's an awfully long flight.
3 [00:36:00] I, I've studied the map and, um, I was trying to figure out the route to stay out of the earth space, you know, to get that far. But on the flight that I made, I was worried about going East because they didn't know the train. I know it's rough. I know there's a lot of mountains. I did know her, I can land and that was where, that's the direction I should have gone.
3 [00:36:22] I would have had a longer flight, but I, uh, took the easy route. I turned South East and went down toward Middleton and so I only gained 18 miles in that last hour where I was doing 40 miles an hour.
2 [00:36:37] So you were kind of craftsmen at that point?
3 [00:36:39] Yeah. Yeah. So I really didn't like the idea. I hadn't that way cause it just, I know it's pretty rugged.
2 [00:36:47] Are you talking about like instead of going Southeast, sticking with kind of going through Baker city and, and you know, kind of South of the Willow hours?
3 [00:36:56] Oh, I can't remember the name of the town, but it's straight East from, uh, Ontario.
2 [00:37:01] Okay. All right. Yeah,
3 [00:37:04] I'm sure. I'm sure get the name of, and the highways don't go East either. They run in the mountains and turns out, you know, so, so it makes it really hard for cross country. I mean, maybe I could do it. I just didn't know. I just didn't have that memorized.
2 [00:37:22] Yeah, I mean that's a belt. Bill Belcourt always said that, you know, that often the big flights, uh, they end because you've, you don't have a plan anymore. You gotta have a plan for those big days. You've got to keep you, you know, you got to still be thinking ahead and have that kind of mapped out. And then suddenly you're in territory where you're just like, Whoa, what do I do with this?
2 [00:37:46] Then you've kind of lost the advantage.
3 [00:37:49] Well, the rest of that story turned out really well. I flew Southeast alumnae, uh, 84, and I started flying faster and faster cause I just wound up Bernoff altitude. It was getting late. And so I just kept gliding fast until I had the land. And after I land at eh, there was a flatbed truck, came out with a bunch of kids and dogs and people and they'd all been celebrating, uh, labor day weekend.
3 [00:38:15] So they, uh, picked me up and took me over to their fire pit party and fed me, gave me beer, and then slept in my other monitor.
2 [00:38:27] So
3 [00:38:28] that was easy. And I stored my glider in their garage and then I, they gave me a ride to the bus in Ontario and then I took a ride to burns back to burns, which I had a truck stored there for just a retrieval purpose and I drove it back to get my glider and then back to bed.
3 [00:38:48] So it was a extra two days of retrieval.
2 [00:38:52] Wow. I was just about to ask you what the greatest retrieved story you have. Is that, is that it? That, that's an app.
3 [00:38:58] Oh yeah, that's a self retreat.
2 [00:39:00] That's it. That's it. Yeah. That's so you wait a minute. You put that truck way out in burns in advance thinking that that was where you're going to fly.
3 [00:39:10] Oh, I, I figured that was, it wasn't really far enough. I mean, I, but I had, so I had a person there that would took care of it. So that's where I left it.
2 [00:39:21] Oh, you mean you would just do this in the summer, you just leave a truck out there in the summer?
3 [00:39:24] Oh yeah. Yeah. Just for that purpose.
2 [00:39:27] God, man, you're my hero. You just leave a truck.
3 [00:39:33] Well, it was a, it was a pretty much a piece of junk, but it ran and it had a rack and so it served the purpose. And, uh, I was thinking, you know, on a day where I struggled to get the burns and I didn't think I could go that much farther. I could just land there, get the truck and drive home and not have the extra retrieval time.
3 [00:39:55] But I never did that.
2 [00:39:58] And now how many hours was that flight and how long were you in the air?
3 [00:40:01] Uh, that one was a, I think six. Now these, I've got a mention these days are pretty sure that was on September. Fourth days are really short. And, uh, I, I could have taken off earlier that's, I probably could add another hour or two earlier, but two ideas, it just didn't happen that day.
3 [00:40:23] So
2 [00:40:25] I gotta I gotta put some things in perspective here for our audience because you know, you and I are talking about Oregon and Ben and pine and that all makes sense. But a lot of the people listening that will make any sense. They don't have any idea of the kind of terrain you're, you're flying over, you know, for when I first moved to sun Valley in 2012, you know, I always thought that are quote unquote tiger country was, was pretty serious.
2 [00:40:51] You know, we've, we often fly from here pretty deep into Montana and know, to me it just seemed like, wow, this is incredibly remote and it's, you know, on a global scale, you know, compared to the Alps, it's insanely remote. You know, there's, there's, there might be some dirt roads, but you can, you can land in a lot of places and you know, there's hunters and there's fishermen and there's people camping and you know, the right times a year.
2 [00:41:16] And, you know, put it this way, I've never had a huge walkout there. Somebody will come by, you know, that might be a couple of cars in a day, but somebody will come by. Now. The first time I really got a piece of band and fir and pine mountain, I went out and you guys have that fly in about that time of year.
2 [00:41:36] It's the first weekend in September every year. And I came out there and Matt Hanzi and I had an amazing flight out. We landed at the base of the Steens. So it was nothing like what you do is about 210 K or or something. So whatever. Yeah, 160 miles, 50 miles.
2 [00:41:56] And uh, I could not believe how remote that part of Oregon is now. There's nothing somebody
3 [00:42:06] out there,
2 [00:42:07] nobody flying over the mal here and it's just, Whoa. It's dizzying how vacant and there's nothing out there.
3 [00:42:17] It doesn't go anywhere. Those highways aren't going anywhere. You, you're in tough shape out there
2 [00:42:25] and, but no, but also they don't go anywhere, but there's also no traffic. I mean I didn't see a car all day.
3 [00:42:32] No there isn't.
2 [00:42:34] Don't tell me another retrieved story. So you've got the one, you know, so your dog told you your wing out once, uh, another time it took two days. Uh, if you've got some other interesting retrieved stories cause that's, that's often kind of the most interesting part of our sport isn't it? Is getting home.
3 [00:42:51] Yeah. That was the hardest one coming out of the U N as in all that snow. That was definitely the hard one. And I wanted to mention that I was on interstate 81 time after a long flight and usually you don't expect interstate people to stop and pick you up. But this one guy, he was a local out there and he stopped and I said well how can we, the stock piece cause I wanted to see what you're doing out here.
2 [00:43:18] Okay.
3 [00:43:19] So that, that was a ride. That was a, I got me a ride to uh, a phone at least. Anyway.
2 [00:43:25] I mean and for it's also, I think it's so easy for us to forget. Know, now we're flying with inner eaches are spots and you know, cell phones. I mean, cell phones are still pretty useless in a lot of the places you and I fly. I mean, once I get out of catch them there, they're totally useless. But, and I know in Oregon, I remember that day, I didn't have cell service all day, so I don't think they're doing much for you.
2 [00:43:49] But back in the day, I mean what, you had radios I guess. Right?
3 [00:43:54] We didn't really have radios, uh, except for CBS, which were real big and bulky, so I never flew with one. And then we started getting ham radios, which you could access us sell tires if some people have those. And then from there things just got better as far as radios go.
3 [00:44:14] Well, yeah, we were pretty primitive back in those days and we didn't. Yeah, we couldn't call. We had to get to a payphone or something to call people to come.
2 [00:44:28] People listening now or like a pay phone. What the hell is that?
3 [00:44:31] Yeah. You know, I was in Yellowstone just recently and they have a pay phone there. I thought it was the neatest thing to call them all my wife from a pay phone and she really loved it and I just through about $2 worth of quarters in and you get three minutes,
2 [00:44:50] it's like, it's like using a satellite phone these days is so expensive.
3 [00:44:55] That's because they don't have cell phone service and yellows.
2 [00:44:58] I know. Thank God. Oh, it's so nice. Yeah. Yellowstone's a a really, really special place. Even with all the people, it's, it's still just amazing. I, I forgot my question when we, when I read that article from bend, uh, there was a really cute piece about your wife and you know, I'd asked her, you know, are, are you scared about this old guy flying, you know, 218 miles into Idaho from basically, you know, central or kind of West central Oregon?
2 [00:45:30] And she said, Oh no, no, he's, he's always been fine. He's never been hurt. He'll be, he'll, I know he's going to get home somehow. I'm not cooling that exactly. But it sounds like you guys have a pretty special relationship. She's been Jason you in the sky for 47 years.
3 [00:45:46] Uh, yeah. She doesn't do that anymore. She quit. She quit a long time ago. I mean I can call her and beg her and she'll come after me, but that's only after after I fly. She won't go up and do a regular retrieval anyway.
2 [00:46:02] No, that's that. She's, she's smart. I talked my wife into that one time about three years ago and she chased us out across the Idaho flats and out the snake river basin just down the freeway. Wasn't even that huge of a day. And I got back in the car and she said, I just want you to know I will never do this again.
2 [00:46:24] And she's held true to that promise.
3 [00:46:26] It's pretty hard to get somebody to drive for you more than once or twice if you are writing a book or something that'd be good for somebody like that, you know? Or they had something to do.
2 [00:46:40] Okay. So 2011 you helped me out with the math. How old were you then when you did that flight?
3 [00:46:46] Uh, 64,
2 [00:46:48] 64. Okay. So your, your button up on? No, you're, yeah, you're over 70 now and still it's still psyched on it. Still still chasing it.
3 [00:46:57] I still fly. Yeah. I just had a nice bite with Patrick cruise here in, uh, last Saturday we got up to 10,000 and I have a nice landings and uh, and then when he got stuck trying to get our car down, I had to tow him out with my truck and it was extra hours, all that.
3 [00:47:22] We had a fun time. We were wearing our, our mass, uh, or virus mass and wipe them down our hands and stuff. And uh, we had, uh, a very good time
2 [00:47:34] now. Good for you. Yeah. I, I appreciate that. Our community seems to be taken the social distancing pretty seriously. That's, that's good. Um, what do you credit, I mean that's a long time. You, so you, you, you know, you did you skydive for seven years, you've been flying hang gliders for 47 years. I understand you've never had an accident.
3 [00:47:55] Uh, I've had accidents, but I haven't broken any bones.
2 [00:48:01] Those aren't accidents then.
3 [00:48:04] Yeah. Right. You can walk away. It's a good land.
2 [00:48:08] Yeah, exactly. Example, especially on a hang glider. You got, you're going fast.
3 [00:48:13] Yeah. Oh yeah. We have faster landings. We've dragged a no wind landings, that's for sure. If we got, if we got five, we're okay.
2 [00:48:24] And, and what do you fly in these days?
3 [00:48:26] It's an hos VR. It's a rigid wing where it's like a 44 foot span. I think it has.
2 [00:48:33] Wow. And
3 [00:48:36] yeah, exactly. It's something else.
2 [00:48:38] So back, back to the question though. What do you credit, okay, you've had some accidents but you haven't broken any bones. What do you, what is your approach, Ben, you thought you think that has kept you safe that whole time?
3 [00:48:52] Well, you know, I have this theory, the good pilots all in or doing something to save themselves, you know, no matter how bad the situation is, there's always something you can do to help yourself out. And uh, I think, I think lock might be a little bit of it, but you do have to know what you're going to do in emergencies and do something.
3 [00:49:19] Don't give up.
2 [00:49:20] Hmm. Here's a question, would you do anything differently?
3 [00:49:25] Oh yeah. My God, I wouldn't have taken off on a bunch of those. I wouldn't have a tail. I wouldn't have attempted that flight for sure. Okay. I'll tell you another story. I was in Boulder, Colorado, and they had this rock that they were jumping off of.
3 [00:49:47] I think they, I don't know what they call it, maybe the ball or the wind was, uh, not too bad. I thought I could take off tandem and uh, the winds started decreasing and I really didn't want to go, but this girl forced me into doing it.
2 [00:50:05] Charlie I don't believe that for a second.
3 [00:50:12] Uh, yeah, it was really stupid. And um, so the wind was decreasing. And when I think back about it, I don't, I don't think we ever made it, even if we'd a launch. And what happened is I went, I had a wire holding the wires in front and there wasn't any room to run or anything.
3 [00:50:33] You just take a step in there going. And so I said, Claire, and the guy didn't get out of the way. He just laid down on the rocks. So I control where I was hitting him. I was trying to launch and the controller was hitting him and I tried to lunge again. It hit him again. And finally we just tipped over, nose down and balanced down this, I dunno, at least 40 feet to the ground, maybe more.
3 [00:51:03] And so I was, a good thing was I was Pogo sticking down. It was hitting my wings one way, another way, and they were breaking, but it was, uh, taken the fall. And so we got down to the bottom and I didn't get hurt at all. And that girl got a really big hematoma on her hip, which is not, you know, that healed.
3 [00:51:27] And so I had a broken daughter. That's the worst of it for me. Let's talk about some good stuff.
2 [00:51:34] Yeah, let's talk about this stuff. No, I did that. That's good stuff. Fell down a 40 foot cliff and walk away. That's great. Yeah, we had a good outcome. There's another one without
3 [00:51:46] flight though. The one we were just talking about the records, like I have to tell you, uh, I was pretty much thinking about going cross country because there was a paraglider meet and there was going to be, there was all these burglars flying so I could see how the error was. And before I got set up I could see they were doing pretty well, you know, like a thousand over.
3 [00:52:09] So I was in a hurry and I got up to lunch and it went dead. All the paradigms we're sitting around and nobody was in the air. So apparently there was a sink cycle and so I've got up to launch and just got ready for the next cycle. And, and uh, well there was standing there, something came in.
3 [00:52:29] I didn't even see anything coming in, but it put my nose on the ground, my tail straight up in the air and just held it there for a few seconds. I thought I was going to be spinning around or picked up or something. And then it was gone and I looked around, I go, what was that? I'd never had that happen before.
3 [00:52:49] I think it was just a little tiny twister with no dust and it was enough to pick the glider up, but it wasn't big enough to even spin it. I just set the glider back down and went, Oh well, well there's some wind coming in, I'll get ready to go. As I was a guy standing around pointing in my nose and I just kind of ignored him, you know?
3 [00:53:10] And uh, okay. I'm launching now and he was trying to tell me, but I know it's going, it was coming off and I was in such a hurry. I launched anyway and I didn't even notice it until later. I looked up in the nose going was half off and it just kind of dangling cause and all kinds of drag. And although I didn't notice anything different during the flight, but that was another case where I was in a big hurry and I shouldn't have been.
2 [00:53:38] And that was the one where you went big? Yeah, that was the record flight. Oh my gosh. Oh well don't need that today. When you think back, you know, some, some, some flight that just really still makes you smile.
3 [00:53:58] Yeah. I gotta I gotta tell you about, you were talking about retrievals. Uh, my previous record flight was one 96 miles. It was Don Ontario. That was in, uh, August of 2006. So that was, uh, four years before I did. I did 196 miles and that was done Ontario.
3 [00:54:19] Well, I landed there and some, uh, people saw me right away, gave me a ride to their barn. I put my letter in the bar and they gave me a ride to a motel, but I had forgotten my wallet. It was in my truck and so I had to call my wife and she gave a credit card number to the Mortel. So I had a place to stay.
3 [00:54:42] And then I had been, I was working at Columbia aircraft, so a new, some pilots there. One of them came out in the morning and pick me up at Ontario airport and gave me a ride back to Ben and then I, yeah, yeah. Then I had to drive my truck all the way back and get my glider and then go back.
3 [00:55:05] So that was pretty be nice. A retrieval there.
2 [00:55:08] That's terrific. Yeah, that's, that's a goodie.
3 [00:55:12] Oh, that flight. Yeah. That's lights and only about an hour or so. I mean that's 200 miles by car, but airplane that's Dan goes about 150, I think.
2 [00:55:24] Yeah. No, that's, that's a, that's a sexy retrieve when somebody picks you up in a plane.
3 [00:55:30] Yeah. Yes.
2 [00:55:33] Wow. Uh, any, any real fond memories from, you know, back when back when things were just kicking off back in the 70s or the eighties that, uh, you know, again, back to what I call the wild West days. I don't know what you guys call him.
3 [00:55:49] Yeah. Crazy days. Uh, you know, I remember once we went off the night of green mountain and I'm surprised nobody got hurt doing that. And some guys were drugs. Uh, they lucked out on that one. We just had to fly, I guess.
3 [00:56:09] You know, it was pretty dark dude.
2 [00:56:14] It was, is this where you had some cars down in the LZ with, with headlights on or was it just totally dark?
3 [00:56:20] I don't think we had cars down. I don't remember the landing. It was, you know, it was easy to land standards. That was a good thing. Those were so easy to just stick anywhere cause they, you know, they only have four to one, four to one gliding you know, it. And they had a big surface area so they were easy to flare and land. That was the best thing about those. But since you mentioned headlights, I reminds me of a flight and uh, California tress line.
3 [00:56:47] Yeah, Marshall in Crestline or pine flats, I think it was a man shot endeavor were flying there pretty late and apparently we didn't know much about it, but there was a convergence at night. There are a lot. And on, uh, he landed and I really had trouble getting down and so it was getting darker and darker because a convergence coming through.
3 [00:57:09] And, uh, I mean the lift was good because of the convergence and he did get the car out with the lights on and that really did help me land.
2 [00:57:20] What's your favorite place to fly? Oh, all these, you know, you, you cut your teeth in Colorado and then you spent a bunch of time out in salt Lake. But I, I know he, you know, you've done, you did the comp thing and uh, you and Larry were doing some traveling around and you know, he ended up out in Ben. I know you've flown all over the place, but do you have a, do you have a favorite spot?
3 [00:57:38] I don't know if I do. There's a lot of good places. I really haven't been to that many places compared to a lot of people. The only thing is if you go to a beautiful place, it's usually pretty turbulent. You know, it was big mountains, big mountains. I, I, I prefer scenic places.
3 [00:57:58] Uh, but, uh, you know, I remember in the old days when I go across country a lot, I didn't really know that train. I was going over all the time. And I, I used to say one of the neatest thing about cross country was seeing a new scenery fly on and sometimes flying low over the train and seeing different animals and different birds and everything was just magical because you'd never seen it before and you'll probably never will again.
3 [00:58:27] That was half the reason I flew. I think back in the old days it was for that scenery and the new, the new terrain that I was flying over.
2 [00:58:38] Charlie so awesome to talk to you when I've just been dying to do this for a long time. I know you've been really busy, but uh, this was really special for me and I know very special for our listeners to hear about your 47 years and we only very barely touched the surface. I know, but so we can do, uh, we can do a, a follow up or something, but I really appreciate it.
2 [00:59:00] Thanks for, thanks for sharing your time.
3 [00:59:02] Yeah, it's really, really nice talking to you. I Gavin and uh, um, I'll be talking to you again. Thanks a lot.
2 [00:59:09] Sounds good. All right, thanks. Charlie talk soon. One quick clarification about the show. Charlie and I talked about this comp.
1 [00:59:22] This is a glider that was very prone to left dives that killed a lot of people before they stopped manufacturing it in a single year. Charlie said 13 and later he reached out after we stopped recording, he reached out and said he preferred pull that comment because he didn't know if that was an accurate number or not. It's a great segment so I wanted to leave it in.
1 [00:59:42] I reached out to Larry tutor who was pretty familiar with that whole scene back then as well and she's reached out to Mark Lynch Shimer who really understands the history and was very involved with Shandel and the number is somewhere between 10 and 14 that year and that was in a year that 40 hang gliders died nationwide, so certainly that one wing was problematic.
1 [01:00:07] If you find the Cloudbase may have valuable, you can support it in a lot of different ways. You can give us a rating on iTunes or Stitcher or however you get your podcasts. That goes a long ways and help spread the word. You can blog about it on your own website or share it on social media, you can talk about it on the way out to launch with your pilot friends. I know a lot of interesting conversations have happened that way and of course you can support us financially.
1 [01:00:27] This show does take a lot of time, a lot of editing, a lot of storage and music and all kinds of behind the scenes costs. So if you can support us financially, all we've ever asked for is a buck a show and you can do that through a one time donation through PayPal or you can set up a subscription service that charges you for each show that comes out. We put a new show out every two weeks.
1 [01:00:48] So for example, if you did a buck a show and every two weeks it'd be about $25 a year. So way cheaper than a magazine subscription. And it makes all of this possible. I do not want to fund this show with advertising or sponsors. We get asked about that, uh, pretty frequently. But I wear a whole bunch of different reasons, which I've said many times on the show. I don't want to do that and I don't like to having that stuff at the front and the show, and I also want you to know that these are authentic conversations with real people and these are just our opinions, but our opinions are not being skewed by sponsors or advertising dollars.
1 [01:01:19] I think that's a pretty toxic business model, so I hope you dig that. Um, you can support us. If you go to Cloudbase mayhem.com you can find the places to have support. You can do it through patrion.com forward slash Cloudbase mayhem. If you want a recurring subscription, you can also do that directly through the website. We tried to make it really easy and that will give you access to all the bonus material, a little video cast that we do and extra little nuggets that we find in conversations that don't make it into the main show, but we feel like you should here.
1 [01:01:49] We don't put any of that behind a paywall. If you can't afford to support us, then just let me know and I'll set you up with an account. Of course, there'll be lifetime and hopefully in your being in a position someday to be able to support us, but you'll find all that on the website. Uh, all of you who have supported us or even joined our newsletter or bought Cloudbase, mayhem merchandise tee shirts or hats or anything, you should be all set up.
1 [01:02:13] You should have an account and you should be able to access all that bonus material now. Thank you so much for listening. I really appreciate your support and we'll see on the next show.