Episode 149- Dilan Benedeti and learning to deal with gravity

I did some acro training back in May this year in the lead-up to the X-Alps with SIV and acro maestro Dilan Benedeti who runs LetFlyParagliding.com. The training probably literally saved my life just two weeks later when things went sideways with less than 100′ of clearance on a solo bivvy mission in Sun Valley (I discuss this incident in the episode with Maxime Pinot). My training took place during one of his SIV clinics with a bunch of very new students so I got to watch his team and his methods in action and came away super, duper impressed. In this episode Dilan shares why we don’t have any kind of standardized training in the US and much of the world and why that needs to change; why so many pilots quit the sport too soon; why so many pilots choose the wrong wing during their progression; the dangers of “risk homeostasis”, especially in free flight; why having a school AND selling gear creates so much conflict of interest (and why this isn’t allowed in many countries); why the US instructor system is so flawed; and why having a basic understanding of psychology is so critical when you leave the ground.

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Show Notes:

  • Dilan talks about why the US and many places don’t have standardized training like APPI and why that often leads to such poor instructors and instruction
  • Dilan theorizes why so many pilots leave the sport after a short period
  • Glider choice- and why we often get it wrong
  • What is “risk homeostasis” and why is it important?
  • Why there is so much conflict of interest when schools also sell gear, and why this ultimately hurts our students
  • Why having a basic understanding of how our brains work is important for progression and staying safe

 



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Transcript

Speaker 0 (0s): Hi there everybody. Welcome to another episode of the Cloudbase Mayhem. This show is with Dilan Benedeti and we recorded this the first time before I left for the X ops back in may and then submitted and all the miles and the sound wasn't good enough. I didn't pick that up and we were doing the recording, so we had to do it again. So this is take two and make this one's a lot better. So that worked out anyway, and that was what caused a little bit of a delay in which we're hopefully now caught up with. So I apologize for the missing show after the, after the XLS, but hopefully we're all caught up with our regularly scheduled programming show every two weeks, a little bit of housekeeping before we get into this one, just want to remind you all.

I said this in the last show, but that we've got this really cool HighQ and fly race and of venture class and pro class coming up and late September, October, early October at the red rocks flying red rocks, X is $5,000 prize money for the winter of the pro class and some of the 30 participants now. And if we fill it all up more information on kwassa.com, C U a S a.com and we're hopefully by the time, and this is outlined on the website, more information there, but you can always reach out to me if you need anything else with that proves it's going to be an awesome event and a, and the beautiful part of the world and will be a lot of fun.

So hope see y'all out there. The show with Dylan, w I did some accurate training with Dylan in conjunction with him giving one of his SIV courses out to lake Berryessa and California. And he's got a fascinating history. He's Italian started flying in Italy way, way, way back. When spent a bunch of years in Morocco under the two legit Toby cologne, who I've also spent much time flying with back in the day. And, and he spent years and years and seven years or more out and Nepal and training acro and fly and tandems.

And, and when he came back to the states and got married as kids and became well, he started this Paul, but became an SIV instructor under the tutelage of the whole API system. And I was super impressed with what I saw out there and how he runs things and his toe Tex and his approach to SAV is just, this is awesome to really, really terrific. And so I wanted to get him on the show to talk about a little bit about us history, but just about risk homeostasis and a conflict of interest with instructors and selling gear.

And some of the holes we've dug ourselves in and here in the states, under our system have training and coaching and flack of, of, I guess, compared with other parts of the world and SIB and maneuver's and watch stuff. And I think you'll enjoy this. There's a lot here. And we had a lot of fun with this talk, please enjoy Dilan. Benedeti

Speaker 1 (3m 10s): Take two, buddy. This is it's great to have you back again on the show. And we did this before I left for Europe, and this will just be tighter. We had some taps of sound problems with that one. So we're going to read it. This is awesome. I get a chance to do this all with you yet again, and it's, and it's good to see your smiling face. And I know you've been doing these courses all summer. The first one was with the first one, this season was Ben and I and, and a whole big gaggle a students. And we'll get into the, how awesome that was, that ended up saving my life as you know, and, but yeah, I wanted to just introduce you to the audience before we get into all the topics we're gonna cover.

And give us a little bit of your background, your you, how you learned pretty fun, and then how you've spent your time since when you learned is pretty fun. And now you're out in California, even though you're you're Italian, you must be chasing the good pizza out there.

Speaker 2 (4m 8s): Well, firstly again, thank you for rehabbing me, I guess, because the state too, and then it's, and it's always pleasure and an honor to be part of this great platform and that you have, and I, and thanks for everything you do, because it's just insane. I'll mention my, my part of the things that changed me and the way I, I approach what we do and what I do personally. So I guess we'll talk about later and then, and it's great to see you and your smile back faster, the race that, that kept me glued to that screen.

And as I told her, that phone call with my ex probably my screen time when I close to it and high school girl and waking up in the middle of the night just to check the, yeah, that was, that was pretty great. Thank you. So how this started? Well, it started in 2008 when I was taking this break or sabbatical or whatever, from my, my old job, I was working as a, as a war photographer for the UNICEF and I was kind of losing it in the way I was like pushing myself too, too hard, I guess.

And I needed a break. So I went to the Alps in Italy and started working with cows and horses. Anything that kept me away from, from the past work environment was good. And, and then one day I saw this guy was walking the horse with the little girl on it, and it was looking instead of just people that are had the worst and they use the walks with the kids. And I, I remember when I was walking this little girl on the horse and I looked it up and I see this guy that comes to the middle of the valleys.

You know, that valley is that the ultimate launch and Ellie where you got the matter on the, the Trevino right up top, like in between this mountain flew over it

Speaker 1 (6m 1s): And a little over a week ago. Yeah. Yeah. And now

Speaker 2 (6m 4s): I'm jealous. Yeah. Yeah. And so it was walking her and I saw this glide. It was an actor bladder, I didn't know, Alex and animals and sorry, Anthony Green, one of the accurate three brothers from California and he started doing alleys well, now I know what it was doing. But back then it was like, whoa, what is that? I want to do that. And I remember walking straight to the owner of the horse and just the little girl I gave him the horse.

And I said, just, I got to go. And I went to see, and to DIA de landing. And I'm like, well, what is this? What, what is this thing that you're doing? And I want to do this. And the instructor was there, the local school instructor where there, so Amy, probably 30 minutes, we had an agreement that he was going to teach me flying. And I was going to make cocktails for him. And in this bar that he had at the landing. So it was like all set up in the day after he gave me an old glider and honest, and that's kind of how it started.

It was pretty fast. Yeah. But, but I probably, I made a mistake, as I said, I found out from the beginning, I said, dude, I that's what I want to do. What he does. I want to do this guy was doing, you know, and that probably didn't, he didn't set the tone. Right. Because he was, he was pretty scared of, and he kept me on the ground for, for a good 10 months without letting me go to takeoff. And I was just allowed to cut. And that's why I did 10 months county and kiting.

I was there 6, 7, 8 hours a day. I remember having this huge bruise on my chest. Like it was just like purple green and yellow. The chest strap was like, I was pushing and pushing me when no win, no rain, but I was there a lot. And, and then after 10 months he kind of had to, so he brought me up there, my first flight there and he started going fast and it was flying like eight and nine times a day.

You know, this place is a probably twenty-five minutes, right. To takeoff. And when you take off, if you go in the middle of the value, you have 800 meters like height that you can burn, like doing spiral, try and Ringo over trying to S to do everything that, that performance flying and jockey showing that DVD. They're like fixing my DVD recording for the MOU, the play for months. And, and yeah.

And then whatever, from there this, oh, winter came and ah, and somebody said, oh, lights and Morocco, it's flyable. And I lived the Morocco before and speak the language. So I remember in two days I bought two tickets from Morocco, moved to Morocco for the winter and start flying again. And seven, eight hours a day. Non-stop until I met Toby. And Toby is that Toby Columbia that, you know, is the one that probably probably made all of this happen in a way, because he pushed me to go against the, the thing that I will never imagine that I was going to do it with the teaching part, writing and I'm is from the beginning.

When I was seeing all my friends with the radio stain on the ground, teaching people a, I was like, Nope, that's not what I want to do. That's never going to be an instructor. I want to fly. I don't wanna be the guy on the ground with the radio. Nope. Til Toby, when they gave me a job. And that's kind of where, where, where this started. You know, I spent, I think a good couple of years going back and forth and back and forth from Morocco because it was easy access for mentally. It was like $30 plane tickets.

And then I was getting more and more into acro. And then when I started doing LEDs on the ground, I, I T four times four reserve tanks in Morocco, all over the ground, the way from hospital. And I got lucky four times. I was like, I landed on my feet, even, even in the time when I took the reserve, went straight and my line and I had to pull those bridals to get her open. And, and it opened probably similar to your case.

It open, I, I felt the opening and the, the, the fraction of a second, I hit the ground and my standing up, I was like this soft patch and like freshly a word from farmers, I guess. And I'm, and that, yeah, that day was, they were at the dinner table. Somebody started talking about this place in Nepal with delayed, good for ACO pilots. And I didn't know anything about it and was like, so I went to see the guy after the, and I'm like, well, why was that place again?

You, you were poker poker of something like that. And he goes, yeah, th th this place in Nepal and when it's not really high over the lake, but there's the lake, a lot of our provider there. And its like, it's just crazy my goal. Okay. And so they asked, they went to Mark Cash and bought plane tickets for Nepal and, and boom, soon enough I was, I think it went back to the early and then, then that's when Nepal. Yeah. I wouldn't say yeah. I went back to Italy and then left for the volume. So,

Speaker 1 (11m 28s): And it was Nepal. You, you, you were making, living there. You were doing tandems.

Speaker 2 (11m 33s): Yeah. Well initially I, which actually might think it was just for two weeks and then I stayed for seven years, but I didn't have, and I just had my ACAR glad and with me and then stay there and made some really good friends with them, Peter Wolf. And that, he's the one that actually gave me my first job as 10 and pilot. It was like, and ever thankful for that. Cause there's started and kind of a crazy life. And on the back there and poker, we're still the golden age when we were making a whole lot of tan then, and still are not so many schools.

There were like six structure. I think now there's probably around 80 when six by eight at each. So six, six schools with six pilot each we're going up and down and we're going to make it a lot of money. I mean, for a country where with $500, you lead like a king, we sometimes $5,000 a month, $6,000 a month plus pitcher money. And it's just insane and you need nothing too leave. And so you, you can even put away money, which was the first for me. I was like, wow, look at this. I've been on the side and yeah.

And you know, and that's where, when Bella was there Jamie and a lot of people that, you know, and so it was, it was seriously the golden age and was like just amazing. And now that it's not amazing now, but it's, it's changed is not, it's not the same amount. And plus with the airport coming in and your passion

Speaker 1 (12m 58s): Then was still very much accurate and you weren't, you weren't really into ECC yet. Like you are and now it was Acrow and tandems and

Speaker 2 (13m 5s): Well, yeah, I mean my exit glider was my tendon. You know, I didn't, I couldn't, I didn't have enough money or if I probably, I maybe I had the money, but I never thought about buying and next seat because when, when I was not doing tandem almost up and down during the Acura, so before 10 and then Mozart Crow or if in between times, and there was a hole in the schedule and it was like, they need only five pilots instead of six, I'd go up with the Jeep and Ram acro. And it was just the premier facility. So when you're, when you're putting your head that you wanna learn Infiniti and it's like that, that's what you do.

You know, you like, you lose your brain on her end and yeah, and that's, that's, that's slowly, slowly tan the master, Tam them. And then when the Veeder of fat, which is the, the owners' my mentor and the Stanks and if I'm an SIV instructor to the acre, he asked me if I wanted to become an SIV instructor. Now I already had my, my comp resolved with, with the championship in Italy.

And I had my instructor license for the API already. He is actually the video of it is the founder. We created the entire system and then it became too big for him to be able to actually follow the entire thing. But he started it in and he started in Nepal. So coming back from that comp, he asked, yeah, everything started in Nepal with him. And it's this instructor from Switzerland and, and occupied it, the same instructor and accurate rating from Susan and believed in DePaul for many years.

Actually he was one of the first week Adam Hill and the frontier pipeline in which back then, and of not the name, I think the sunrise, then they split it. But that's those two, him and Adam are the kind of started everything and Nepal and the vid started at BPI and he asked me if I wanted to become an SUV distractor. And I'm like, oh, that's, that's interesting. So I started studying with him and following him around for SIV and slowly, slowly got him and MSU brambles of French instructor were really good at saving instructor and microbiology, him and Sabrina, his wife name.

And they helped me a lot. And there they are my mentor. They are, they, they taught me everything I knew back then and they got me into this. So I started doing SAP for them.

Speaker 1 (15m 37s): I was just gonna say one of the things that really caught me and watching you operate and watching your, your courses and your students was the, I mean, I remember watching jockey with this too. It's that there's so much happening that you guys seem to be ahead of, you know, you're, you can predict what's going to happen before it actually happens. And in talking to logon, one of your Totex and very keen pilot, who's over chasing in Europe right now and just competed in the EIR.

He talked about it and it's just, it's so much observation, you know, what you get from being a tow tech and towing people all day, every day, over and over again, all summer is being able to just observe, you know, I, I can understand the maneuvers, but to see it and tell people what they're doing, you kind of have to be ahead of the game the whole time. And it seems like, it seems like you really have to spend, I guess, years, right. Just observing, just watching it, you know, being kind of the low guy on the totem pole or girl and the total pool and, and doing the towing or doing the observation or run on the boat and run on the rescue boat.

How much of it is it just watching versus you being an acro pilot and doing these maneuvers over and over again? I guess it's a combo of both.

Speaker 2 (16m 60s): Yeah. I guess it is. I guess it is. Most of it is watching and also like, it's, it's true that like most of the time when I, I tell this to the, that they're going to have a collapsed before that happens a couple of seconds before, because you see what is going to lead to a collapse, you know? Okay. You're late is going to collapse, stands up and one, two bump collapse, you know, so that's, that's kind of been, and I always say that it's, I it's very addictive for me cause I think I do get in some mild flow stage when I coach.

And that's why it 15, when I got the 15 second and say, you know, and nobody's allowed to talk to me and the, and probably that's why I love it so much, but yes, observation and there's some kind of mirror neurons involved for sure. I mean, the fact that I did it in the past and I went through that, all that learning process, the like, and the steak and errors that are somehow imprinted in my subconscious a lot. And when it comes to watching someone doing some things, especially when they do it wrong, knowing what's going to happen and, and, and the ad, and if it's under the needs, correction, that insight instead of just go and sell.

I mean, if it's, if you know, it's going to have a middle frontal, you could just go ahead and he's going to have a collapse, just go ahead and stop. But if something that needs immediate, like, like go for a break, stop and mouse, or like low and watch your elbow break towards it. If you have to stop an auto rotation is, and maybe it's Daniel of and a different input, but, but you do, you do see and know what's going to happen. I had night and way before it happens, actually. Hmm. Hmm.

Speaker 1 (18m 38s): Yeah. I mean, it seems like you, you had things stacked up really quite well, that the of sure you weren't thinking about it back then when you were in Nepal of practicing acro, but it's, I mean, it doesn't seem like it's, it's not riding a bike. It's not, it's not something that you can just, okay. I've been flying for 10 years. I can be an SIV instructor. You've got to have a certain set of, you've got to have the observation time and you've gotta have the maneuver's, you know, and just down and you've got to have, you know, and that, that means being an accurate pilot to me.

Speaker 2 (19m 10s): Yeah. Yeah. I agree. I ran over the first I came to the two, the U S I was like, and I was seeing that several people doing clinics. No Acrow background. And I'll be the certified because the system here, I mean, there's no that still now does it, it doesn't exist. And even if you find out like pretty initially, I thought, I think I heard you also say, Hey, you're supposed to dislike that used by discouraging people from taking an SAV.

And that's what I heard it and thought were at the beginning, you know, and lately, especially with last year, we COVID, or when we were kinda struggling to get back and work and Marty and other from the youth, but were incredibly helpful. They send letter to the BOR explaining what I do. And wow, it's so vital that I'm up there, the leg doing it. So it was, eh, it was, it was pretty impressive what to do. And, and it changed my, my, my, my, my idea on is, you know, I, the, I D I thought it was like, oh, no, don't go for it and say, but it's dangerous.

You know, like BOC. And, and also like, again, looking around and seeing people with a, with a toe and with the winch and the boat doing a, without any acrobatic and was like, well, that's, that's, that's not right. You know, and if you go to Fabienne and if you go and see Fabian, and, and you want to become an SAV instructor, I mean, the exam you have to do downloading, if you can tumble, you can probably not pass. You're not going to become an instructor. Well, only if there's a reason, the way I see it is if I have to send someone to learn to learn part buy, and in general, and all of a sudden, like my system, for example, to someone, the deed itself, at least a thousand take off of 2000 lending.

Right? Sure. So if I want to send, if I want to send my, my little sister to learn and stalls, I will try it and send them to someone that did a thousand stolen itself. And that's why, I mean, only aggravated it doesn't have many stalls, you know, and we're not talking about the magic number, a hundred stalls. One just don't know why we're talking about thousands and installed. You know, it's like we do install to interiorly, to exit activity, to recover from actors, with like, we're, we're stalling all the time. But again, well, that's a good,

Speaker 1 (21m 32s): That's a good Dilan. That's a good transition. You, before we started talking about you, there were some subjects that you really wanted to cover. And this seems like a really important one in that's standardized training, you know, to me, especially this part of the world and north America, your training is 100% dependent on who you go to. I mean, there's, no, there is no syllabus. Like the API offers that is you're going to do this, and then you're going to learn this, and then you're going on.

And, and this, and this was why, this is why these things are important. It's totally dependent on, you know, do I go to Dilan or do I go to somebody else? I'm going to learn two completely different, maybe not totally different things, but, you know, the emphasis is going to be different. The maneuvers, the order that you get taught them in a and M and not just SIV, I'm talking

Speaker 2 (22m 30s): P one. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I mean, it's, it's difficult. Okay. So we are, and we are with Parkline and so small, still in the us, and there is an effort to grow the sports. And probably because we want the sport to grow we're we are sacrificing quality over quantity in a way what happens. So when you're saying makes sense, and I remember I heard someone and probably he was, and it was on the show with you.

And I thought the guy was super smart. Cause the se, oh, wait, when it comes, when it came down to choose where to go and when to learn. And so I did my research, I found out which one were the three best pilot in the U S or five best pilots in the U S then I, I did and other research and trying to find out where do they learn? And I came up, we had only two schools and I chose one of the two that was like, whoa, that's pretty smart. You know, but it should not be that way and learn how to drive.

Exactly. And so every instructor, I mean, then obviously there was the big school, but do with the big name, the guy that owns the school, that smart enough to the surrounding himself with a good instructor. Instructor's and that's always going to happen and even in country, but, and I have a standardized training, but the thing with what happened here and what I think is just, I heard you say also a lot of times they cause, and or people asking why the Swiss and the French, why they are so good.

And, and obviously when we ask that question is when you're comparing it to us and the us, why are, why are there so good compared to us? Cause we can't compare it to anybody else we don't mean. And that's what the, that's what we have. And that's why we can see. And I'm, and the answer is often, oh, the Swiss have the money and the French have the coaches, but it's not. So in France, for example, and I'm going to say, sorry for this. Cause I know my wife and some of my friends would start drinking because every time they think I say Europe is better than the us.

And now they have the drinking game on it. But in friends and friends to become an instructor, Paragon instructor first to apply, you need competition results. You need to comps where you rank yourself in the first turn and you know, CONOPS and France, they're like the main high level.

Speaker 1 (25m 6s): In other words, you're an epically good pilot. But, and to do that in France, you're an epically good part.

Speaker 2 (25m 14s): And pat, I mean you of passion, you have everything, you have motivation. You have like chase, you're chasing it. Exactly. So once you have the cops, once you have the re the compass result, and then you can apply. And if they accept your application, you entered the school and it's 10 months mandatory work in the school with no payment. Okay. So you need a bank loan, obviously, because you need to pay for your, for your bills. And it costs you around probably 10 to $15,000 and every weekend or sometimes every other week.

And you have the college grade exam organized by the, the governance. It's like the secretary of sports, you know, and this book, it's like, it's, it's the same thing for mountain guides, Reba guide, ski instructors. They all go through the same process and actually the Danish, well, part of the study now it's the same for everybody. And then you, you choose your branch. You go for again, river guy, mountain guy.

Speaker 1 (26m 12s): Yeah. And it's like becoming an IFM GA guide. It's it's a lifetime, it's a career. It's, it's not something you just do half ass. You know, it takes massive commitment. Both time-wise money-wise talent-wise yeah. It's, it's totally.

Speaker 2 (26m 28s): And it's and it's. And at the end, what that brings is that no matter if you, if you're the guy that wants to learn part lighting, instead of having to go through that process, that, that, I'm very smart guy. I think when through, I mean, no matter which school you hit, you going to have an instructor that has the same background and isn't as knowledgeable as the school next door, then it comes down only to personalities to you, like the guy.

And it goes with who you are. You stay, you don't, you go to the next one. Okay. But it's not gambling, you know, it's not like you, when you don't know better. It's it's it turns this thing. And it's, it's, it's pretty, it's gambling, you know?

Speaker 1 (27m 15s): And it's not rushed of that. But yeah, I mean, here, here it is literally to me, it's push and relax because you're, you're, aviating, you're playing with gravity in the ground and you're literally, okay. Does this barrel have the bullet?

Speaker 2 (27m 30s): Well, exactly. Well, well then again, if, depending on who you are, you might be able and that's that the S so think about it in the U S probably you need one week, when you do your instructor clinic, you basic instructor clinic. So you didn't one week probably, or weekend and probably a little more than a weekend. And then you have to do a little bit Prentice and you can become an instructor. And not long after that, you can open the school and start selling years. And so for that, what do you need, I think, is a B3 know, tandem license and know, and say the experience.

So if you never did it and say, you don't have a and license and two weeks before you were our, whatever, the sounds of it that far out, and that's been nice, but, and it's not to blame damn, it's not today. And there's this young, the instructor there and are just passionate and, and they try it. And then what's, what's the reasoning behind it. It's like, oh, by the way, if we want to grow the sport, we need, we need to make it easy to become an instructor. So we can have more and more and spread a spread this thing.

And that we love so much. But I think by doing that well, again, it was like, we're sacrificing quality over quantity, you know? And it's like, and, and it doesn't seem right to me, most items, I joke about a DSA with students. Like most instructor in the United States probably don't have an SAV, never did an SAV. And so when I have a P two, we 20 hours, the second it goes back home, they don't have probably more experience that is on the instructors. And the other thing is like, if you remember when he started flying and you're falling in, love you, the guy that touch you at the clock, I mean, and you it's its normal.

This is the, this guy just tugged you out of the flight was the coolest thing you've ever done with your life. Even if you've had a crazy experience. And you're like, this is pretty cool. So it's difficult to question them. It's difficult not to put them on the pedestal is difficult to start even looking around and start comparing what you're getting with, what you should be gaining. So, and, and especially again, if there's, if there's an, a community that has been created around this, and now finally for probably the first time in your life, you feel that you belong to some, some thing.

And there's a lot of that goes with it. And how it's it's, it's pretty, I think we should. But the fact that we said, oh, it's so small and the us and we have to grow. And so this is the way to do it. And we can't put too many rules. I think again, the fact that we are, and in such a young nation, as we have the responsibility to look at others and do better.

Yeah.

Speaker 1 (30m 28s): I mean, I think, I think the numbers back all this up, I mean, we get, we attract lots of people to the sport. This is what we need your next thing. And then they all leave it. And the reason they all leave it is because they're getting shit instruction and they get scared and the attrition handles the growth. You know, it just cuts it right off. We get the same number of people flying in the states. Now that we did 10 years ago, the gliders are better. The sights are better.

You know, we know a lot more, we got better weather apps. We've got everything's on our side to attract more people to the sport, but it doesn't happen. But, well, like I said, the attrition takes care of the growth. And so it's not working. So if it's not working, you gotta change it.

Speaker 2 (31m 16s): I think it will. I think it will. I think it will. Cause I asked questions. I'm like, why is it like this? And then you hear, oh, it's because there's some old and glider pilots and the youth board. And there are refuse to change stuff to too set rules and 'em, and then obviously you, you end up always to hearing, which is not just the U S this is everywhere. And when we talk to the old school of pilots and the freedom at all, and then if you put too many rules, like mandatory license and venue, you affect the freedom of the free flights.

And, and, and I always, I always answer to that with 'cause even in the friends, I mean, friends, we'd always said about friends. There's no mandatory license in France. You can go and buy your glider on eBay and pay for the third-party insurance and you can go fly it. You don't need the license. It's not required, but everybody goes to a school because they all know people that come from the school, they know that the system is so good and the instructors are so good.

Why would you do it by yourself? I mean, yes, there are those that don't want to have the money. And they have a good friend that is a pipeline instructor, or even just a good pilot, then they'll learn. And that's not that everybody goes to a school obviously, but freedom. When we talking about that, I mean, if you, if you're not properly trained, if you don't know what you're doing now, every time you fly, no, I'm not free because you're dangerous and you put me in danger.

Okay. Yes. You buy yourself yet. Yes. Is, is your, the piloting command you're and indeed it's an individualist and sport, but we flight together. And if I'm the only mistake that I've made today to take off after U and now I'm the lo you and the terminal, I'm gonna pay for your, from your mistake, you know? And if you have a collapsed and you enter and you'd go into an audio and you fall in to my glider, when we were close to the two, the train and stuff. And so you're free to the should stop putting the mind starts.

And if you're a dangerous pilot, probably you're affecting my own freedom. So it's like, if we want, if that's an argument that can, that we can bring to this freedom thing, and I'm the Free flight spirit I buy and loved the idea. I love the idea, but not, yeah, not really. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (33m 47s): So why, why let's wrap the, the initial thing up? Well, why do we lose so many pilots? Is it that, is it, is it, why has the attrition rate so high? Cause it's also really high in things like kite surfing that are much less risky. It used to be very risky. And the, the initial case and everything were a lot more dangerous, but you know, it's, it's kinda the same there. You, you, you learn it, you fall in love with it. It's super awesome. It's amazing. You know, you're using the wind to power yourself along and then inevitably the attrition rate is really high.

You know, you, you blow a ni the accidents are different in kitesurfing and they're not nearly as extreme as paragliding. Cause you're not, you're not, you're on the water typically, and you're not using, you know, gravity's not such a killer, but is it injuries? Is it fear? Is it something that scares people or is it something else? Is it just lack of training?

Speaker 2 (34m 40s): So I, I think is a bit of everything. Let's let, I want to start with the, the optimistic one and the activist one. And I think that, because I thought I spent time thinking about it. And so what can we do to change this? You know, I think part of it is just human nature. Okay. A lot of the students that come into our lane and they're just like testing things in life, you know, you know, you do something and you think you like, and you fall in love with it. And then you get bored. You want to do something else. And now you do guys surfing. So we go through phases.

We all did not know when, when, when, when you grow up, you're a teenager, you listened to heavy metal and then two months later, and now you're, you grow dry logs and you have the jam value and you'll listen to reggae, you know? And so it's like, we do that. Now. It's part of who we are. So I think that a lot of people that come to the sport, they're just exploring, experimenting. And until they finally find what they love and stick with it, you know, but the reason for it is so, and another, another thing that I think caused people to leave is we tend to probably, again, for the same reason, we're trying to grow a sport.

So we don't want to scare people. And we tend to keep the danger of it hidden, you know, when people first start

Speaker 1 (36m 4s): Being in a sense.

Speaker 2 (36m 6s): Exactly. And when people start, you're not allowed to mention a word like accident, crash, dad, or danger, you know, because otherwise you scare them away. So I don't think that's right. I think, I think any adults that starts, or even young, like younger people that starts, they should be put in a position when they can make any form and smart decisions. And before starting before getting into this, there's no point I'm not talking about like the accident.

I mean, I'm all for like, there's a time and a place to talk about accident. If we're going up on takeoff, or even if you're on takeoff, you're in the van and you start talking about crashing an accident, I'm the first one that tells the driver to stop it. Like, yeah. And I will ask you to leave the sheep, you know? And there's like the way that that's not, that's not the right place for that. But when it, when you have a student, I think before they, they invest time, energy, money, they should be put in front of the yacht. I mean, this is the ideation now. And I'm, and I don't know if it was built back or which Macklin and that podcast and said this thing every time you take it out of the bag and yeah.

And probably that's not the right way to say to a student that is about to start. Okay. And there's even trying, and that is thinking about getting to paragliding. But I think the more honest we are and the, the better, and you know, we'll probably that will probably filter people instead of having them starting this thing, falsely believing that they're safe. If you've got a little, be your safe. And then one day, once they start really like looking around and the star, seeing that people die doing this, or people break their backs or they have accent, or like you said, they twist their knee, they break their knee, they break an ankle.

And now they suddenly realize, and like, well, wait a minute. I don't want this. This is, this is not what I thought. This is not what I was like, brought to believe. I mean, this thing is dangerous and that's when they go shit, I'm out, you know? And so that's, that's part of it. And, and for those who don't get to that point, I think what also could contribute to that as the is premature exposure to condition, there are not right for them and what I need.

And I don't know if you, if you listen to that podcast, the Judea do the more I had with this guy, Tony's did the train psychology and, and, and parked, right. I learnt a lot from it. And when I started using a lot of that, and he might be my classes as when you first start this, when you are now of this, and you don't that you, in a way that you don't speak to the, and the communities of any community, apparently, and communities, ski, snowboard, they all have their own language that goes with it.

Okay. So when you just enter this community, you are not absorbing in it and you don't speak the language you yet. And so it, obviously the second you started naming something, when you don't the language, aren't something. And now the reality is, is a social is more of a socially constructed one. So we're not the example that he gives. And I thought was brilliant. It's like a Walker will walk on, on the edge, on the cliff, look down and see a place where he can fall and die. And the park lane and pilot, we don't experience, but a gliding paddle from walking the same spot and look down and see, because it's horrible.

Is it, what are the trigger points? Is this play flyball? Why is there a house storm over here? You know? So again, it's all about that language, you know? So when you still do not speak language, and you're not, again, absorbing this community, you, you go to turbulence, for example, there's 47. You go through the turbulence, which the terminals are turbans for the definition, and you you're uncomfortable. You know, you feel like you're like, you're being like, you're the victim of this.

Uncomprehensible dark forces that are like tossing you all over the place, you know? But the way it put it down and says, I have a lot of that. And I repeat this to my shoes all the time. And it says turmoil, like are an acquired taste like whiskey and cigarettes, you know, as you remember your first and risky to the terrible yeah. And all, but then you force yourself because the older guy and say the whiskey is good. And what do you do? You keep trying until you actually start, whoa, this is actually a really good.

And it, the same thing with terminals in the community, the cross-country pilot, we dire stats is with the reputation or even worse the sky, God. And I'd like to talk about that once, but say, there are, they're all saying, this terminals are great because they get you high up and then you can go across country. So that the, the, the, the student that it's even now being absorbed into this new language, into this new community will force himself to suck it up and get used the term on till you actually learned how to use and climb.

When, when we, when doing that, I mean, there's, there's no other way. I think you, you, you see it like me. I mean, to learn, you need to expose yourself to stronger, stronger, right? I mean, that's how we learn. We have no choice. If you always stay and laminar flow and fly early in the morning and fly lead to the new day, you'll never learn what we just mentioned, but the problem is how fast are you going? How fast you're moving that bar. Okay. Back to sports psychology.

They often talk about the, the 4% rule. I remember me talking about that. And since I know that you're into flow and flow state, and you've probably read all of the books that I ran, and I went pretty deep into that rabbit hole, and I'm not out yet. You remember the, one of the main component of a flow state is the balance between challenge and skills. Okay. Every time that what you doing is above that line, it can easily turn into something that it's too much overwhelming, frustrating, therefore, dangerous, you know, a certain thing when it's below and it's below it's and it can be boring and distracted and the same thing's dangerous, you know?

Exactly. And so if we, if we don't move that bar and slow enough, we will end up by putting people in that position where what they're going through, what they're experiencing is too much, and it's frustrating and overwhelming and dangerous, but, and even without a and up having an incident or an accident, it could be not enough for them to say, fuck this. You know, I'm out, you know, I don't want this.

I'll I'll, can we not do that? That's the tough one, because put yourself in the school shoes as an instructor that has like maybe five people coming to it at the same time for the program, if you want P too. And they're all done when they're like seven to 10 days at the hill, they all did the, the 25 flights, but we're all different, right? We all different because we have different experience, different, different things we did in the past. I think we talk about when we were at the lake and when you have like, cross-reference, and from your past, like kayaking, or like rock climbing or Floyd sports in general, you know, this might be a little easier for you to learn, you know?

And when you don't, it might take a little longer. So you always have like five, six people that are done with the program at the same time. And now it's time for the mountain slide, you know, and you bring them up to take of it. It's always difficult to point a finger and say, Hey, yeah. And not you today. It's good for you. Good for you. Good for you. But not for you. It's, it's, it's, it's tough. You know, we're dealing with ego, we all have won and part of why. And then I think when we, we taught the world when it comes to, we go, when we were really good at it.

Yeah. And so it's why, I don't know if there's actually like S and a way to do that, you know, because literally when you are in that position, when you're, when we don't speak the language, you know, observing the community, you're fried down in the sense that anything that happens to you, the lack of understanding that's if you miss, if you can analyze what happened and understand it completely well, that's when you run into the risk of getting traumatized and, and, and we all know how difficult it is, how easy it is to imprint the trauma, like a negative experience and your subconscious and how difficult it is to get it out of there.

You know? And then, then, then you started dealing with the old brain and it's a lot more difficult. So, so that's probably also one of the way, the reason why we lose so many people, you know, I heard some number the way, I don't know what to trust when it comes down to numbers, it's like eight out of 10. They leave after three months, four months. And so, yeah,

Speaker 1 (45m 20s): Which is similar, I think it's eight or nine out of 10 kayaking. I don't know. I don't think it's that high for, for Keiser surfing. But the, when I learned how to kayak, it was the mid nineties. And I think I went through with 13 other paddlers and we all learned, and we did the pool, and then we did the theory and we went out and paddled some class to stuff. A year later, I was the only one that was still battling, you know, everybody else and dropped out. And it was, and every one of them was fear. Every single one of them has gotten the situation, gone upside down, freaked them out.

The num nobody got hurt that I know of. Nobody died. And it was just, you know, it was just, it was, it went from fun, the scary, and, and that was it. And when we're done.

Speaker 2 (46m 4s): Yeah. Well, I remember when I, so when you were at the lake and you had to leave, coz you had your plain, but it, at the end of every class, I started probably a couple of years ago. I say to all students, because most of them, you, I mean, you were up there and you saw like, this lot of people would five hours, 10 hours, and they do great. It's just incredible seeing how good this is. Again, no pat, no bad. Abby has no parasite, no, like not too much YouTube or waiting talks. So they're not, they're not compressed.

Yeah. And, and they do it at the end of the clinic. I always, I always say, Hey, if you do, when you go home, if you do go through something that scares you in anything that you don't understand, just call me, call me. And I started as a, like, as my little contribution to this, like to stop people from getting to the point where the hidden their head against the wall. They don't have anybody to explain exactly what happens to them. Because again, once you, once you have a full understanding, when she can analyze it, you can skip getting traumatized, or you can go around, you know, like not fall into the hall, the, into the whole and, and go out.

And, you know, it started as a, as a, like something that I threw out there. And today, I mean, I spent probably five, six hours every week when I'm not in the SIB talking to people in the phone. And, and, and you, when you had your, your, your accident or add ComPilot, even the pilots, didn't do my class by, they heard from a friend that, that I do that they call me and say, do it. And I know I didn't do an SIV with you, but this happened to me. And it's like, and again, I was obviously not being there.

I didn't see it, but with Derek collection and, and which again, go for, to remember it. You need to have, I don't know if you remember when you first told me about the accident, the first thing that I captured from your recollection was the slow motion park. When you said that, I was like, yes, we have a lot to work with, you know, because you're an experienced pilot. So you went to the frame freeze, or you were in flows, so, and an elongated time, and you re you remember, like in slow motion, rapid.

So we have all small details that can, and actually you remember when we put the pieces together, it was like, oh, okay. When you told me the way you rich for the reserve, and when you look at right after you had the collapse, it was like, great. You know, but someone that just started this don't have that, you know, and then re if off and after an accident, if you go see and, and novice in and a pilot, that is not that experience. When you ask them, they can remember everything went too fast.

You know? So at that point, when I do, I asked them to give me the names of people that saw the accident. And I made a few phone calls, and I get all the feedback from people from witnesses. And when we that information and I called a guy or girl back, and we go through the entire understanding process, you know, to get analysis. And this is why this happened. The understanding

Speaker 1 (49m 18s): Is really scary. You know, I think that I would have gone to the ops with, you know, a definite, definitely a fear injury. If that, if none of that made sense, if it was just like, holy shit. And it was shit. And then I threw my reserve, you know, but I remember everything. It all made sense. It was just, okay, this happened, this happened that's. And that's what I did to do it. And I stayed active. And then I threw, and then I hit the ground and it was all, it all made sense. It was all okay. My training took over and, you know, I was in a bad spot and, and, but it all worked out, but I knew why it worked out and that that's, that's the difference.

Speaker 2 (49m 54s): Yeah. And that was great. And your case, if you remember, but the, the, the little details, when I asked you, did you see the collapse? And when you said yes, then I knew why he went into an honor. You know, so it's not the collapse itself is like, I remember you talking to Maul, which I, I love that podcast. I listened to it probably three, four, even more five times. And he was mentioning about like, oh, we have to struggle as his SAV instructor to get to fight this natural, this instinct that we have, like this trying to protect bag when you're, when you're, you're, you feel like you're falling out of the sky.

And now when you do, and when you're doing that, you are pulling brakes. So you're overreacting and your not getting out of the situation. You're not using any of the ax of windows because you're doing that. And the other one that we have to fight that I think it's even more important is that when we do the collapse, if our first reaction is to look up looking at the glider, we'll go with it. 'cause the glider. And the collapse itself creates enough drugs for you to start for it, to start turning. And if the Gladys starts turning loose, you looking at it, you go with the U, if you do like a little visualization and, and try, if you look up on the ground of terms and you follow your gaze, you actually following it with your weight when your body, and you go straight to that, that's a difficult one.

That's, that's something that Mike and I still do it myself. Yeah. I still, I slap myself and the face, every time I do that, it's like, you idiot, you did it again. And then you fly and your like flown and big wack, and you immediately were flying these piece of plastic with a bunch of strings. It's normal that when it goes black, you look at it. And you know, so the training for that probably will take me forever. But I hope when they'll be able to, you know, and just say, focus on my head and lock my elbow if I need too, and not looking at the glider, you know?

Hmm. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (51m 52s): We'll have to, it's hard to explain it and audio, but it's the, the whole blocking with the elbow and, and bracing against the, the flying side is I love that. And that was a really awesome takeaway. I'd never seen that. I'd never heard that the practicing it and the, since, since you've showed that to everybody, but I think that's just describe, describe that real quick. Let's see if we can do it without, without visuals. Cause otherwise we'll, we'll, we'll, we'll slap a video into the, the end of the podcast where you can show it.

But

Speaker 2 (52m 27s): Yeah, we can and maybe even do it on the simulator ones. When we get together, I know you're going to count for our core training so we can do that if you want. But ideally is like this technique we all learn when we've learned probably late and they'll say, oh, why don't we do? And yet, if you have the collapse, well, throw your buddy on the open side, right? Lean towards the open side, towards the flying side. And the problem with that is that when we fly, we do fly with this famous two pounds pressure or the, the dead waits of your home's. And when you throw your body on the opposite side, you end up applying break.

And now, now you don't have a fully open, right? And you have probably 50% remaining. If you're lucky, if it's, if it's more, it's even more risk, but even a 50% remaining open glider, the, the, the, the wind blows changes, the stall speed changes and the stall point and changes. So if you throw your body, carry that much brake, you're very close to the swelling. You glided like rapes level. You know, it's not under your seat anymore. It's not below your butt. It's like at your ribs, you will stall that 50% remaining open glider.

When we do lock our elbow against the riser and the beat and with our fast against their rise and not pulling any brake, okay, we can do that. And it's immediately, when you do that, you're fully way shifted towards the open side, without effort. Now, if you release the elbow, your way shipped your way, ship goes back to neutral. So you're not like you're not like struggling to keep that position. It's very easy. You remain in upright position, your torso is straight. And the other advantage of that position is that you can always see and grab your reserves.

If you have a glimpse on the right and your reserve is on the right side. Now you throw your buddy on the left and you have to stay fully away, shifted to clear the terror to get ground clearance. It's first. It requires a lot of energy. Okay. So if it takes you a long time to get to a safe place where you can actually address the problem of you'll be more tired. And and again, you're visual. You can really see around because you're fully way shifted. Okay. And you, when you're far from you're reserved, you know, like sometime and some extreme case, when you need to be really fully way shifted to, to keep it straight, you won't be able to grab your reserve now, and every time and you go for it every time you move your way to go for it, you will straight to the, and go straight into an Otter.

And the, and the opposite of that. But again, we'll, we'll probably like do a little video, maybe if you want to put it, that that will be, that will be helpful. I think.

Speaker 1 (54m 59s): Yeah. That tell me Dilan, you wanted to talk about why people choose certain gliders, which is worded differently than glider choice. We talk a lot about glider choice on the show, but I have a feeling you're going to take us in a different direction.

Speaker 2 (55m 19s): Yeah. Why would the glider choice? Yeah, so this, again, it's, I'm an out of the original and I took the initial, is that the same guy and that set down and we were Julie, Diane, and I, I thought it was, and I was pretty interested and I started talking about it with my students and I try, I D I started as an experiment we might see. And I was just asking the question and it works. It works. And slowly, slowly as he, more and more people after a clinic, they come to see me in private and they decide to, to downgrade, to step down, step down a class, or even to some time, basically.

I think there's a lot, if you, if what he says is if you ask a pilot, why did you choose this glider? Was that out of the, the performance? Did you look more into the performance or the safety aspect? They will all say safety. All of them. Okay. Only a few. Actually. I had a couple that said performance. Okay. I drive out this for performance. Okay. But that's more advanced pilots. You know, they will choose like Xeno instead of a mirror, whatever the, what I tell them.

And when he actually says was, what's your biggest flight? What kind of flight do you achieve with your glider and the numbers? Why it's, it's, it's pretty stunning. And it's like, they could have achieved those glider, not stepping down one class, but probably two or more, you know? And he exactly Zach. So you're talking about safety. You choose that glided for safety. But when I look at the flights you do today, well, you could be way safe or, cause I do think there's not the safety and what we do a, we would the low B or Nate and looking at what you do.

So I think it all comes down to these rides, Sperling and, and seeing it all comes down to ego and unfortunately for us to stop. Okay. So that puts us, men's paragliding, pilot, men's in, in a worst position and women, because if you, if you look, if you notice, I started looking around and actually I started noticing as like, oh, that's right.

This is actually happening. When you see women's day to not do that, they just don't have, they don't rush to classes like we do. And they have a different way of learning its Logan around when, when, when we were driving and say, yeah, they have, that's more of a building blocks system that they put up and to pilot three start together boy and a girl, man, and a woman, whatever we want to say after two years, they might have the same skills, the same level, but he will be on a D when a pod and she will still be on the low B with an open honor's and she's going bigger.

Yup. Geez. I've seen that every time. And then what you hear from the landing is, oh, she must be liked. Oh, well, yeah, she has. And she's out here and then, oh, she is still happy and she's lied on that and it's not data and they just don't do it. They just don't rush straight. And part of it, and again, going back to the community, I'm all for Parkland in community. Okay. I think there's so many aspect of every night, a great park and community that are priceless now, the mentoring, the, the friendship and you, and just sharing this thing that we love so much, but there's other side of it that are pretty dark, you know, it's like this, this, the peer pressure or the puppy syndrome, or even just like that, going back to when we were saying about the, the status of the cross-country pilots, you know, they get to hear him and pirate was like beginner of private and say, yeah, but the XC pilots know, like if there were the separate pieces, you know, they're called, they're being called exe pilot's you know, and, and now, so now the, some people end up wearing the year as a badge, as a label, you know, it's like, probably because they don't want to be looked at as a beginner anymore because they were in the hope and honors for the low BS.

So now they want to rush. They want to be part of the cool guys. You know what I mean? And I would say that one of the popular, yeah.

Speaker 1 (59m 46s): I almost feel like, and we've talked about this a lot on the show. I don't mean to sound like a broken record, but I almost feel like when you, when you're phrasing it that way almost feel like this is it's, it's really a community problem. I feel like, I feel like we're not rewarding. You know, it's, it's the Bernie pestles, you know, that guy's throwing down 2 50, 300 FAS on the mentor every year, you know, and they should be the one's who I had it on the show and same thing, you know, he decided when he stopped doing comps and he just didn't have enough time and he's gets five, six big days a year.

And now that he didn't have the hours and he loved to fly those gliders, you know, the hot and gliders, but he didn't have the hours. So he kicks everybody's ass on a B, and those should be the pilots that we, I mean, look at Josh Cohn, he comes down and kicks everybody's ass on and on the low end D and D every year, Don and via, because he's that good? You know, and I'm not saying, I mean, and a low India and D is not what the conversation we're having right now, but, you know, it's, it's what I have always said.

And what I have observed is if you can't stay in the hour and the air for 10 hours on an ENB, you got no chance of doing it on. And the NC there's no way. And because staying in the air is all about observation. And if you can't observe, because you're dealing with your wing, you're not going to stay in the air. And so the only way you're going to stay in the air is if you're so good and so confident on the weighing that your on and, and those skills have to align, it's not, you're not gonna stay in the air and longer moving up.

That's not how the equation works. It's opposite of that. And so, yeah, I mean, it's almost w we should almost be, you know, celebrating the pilot who can kick everybody's ass on the low and B you know,

Speaker 2 (1h 1m 40s): But in a way we are, we are you're right. We've been seeing this for a year and now pilot on the bee, like kicking acid. And we still have this coz probably again, statures and, and again were in the black skirt, the big ball and everything. And it looked cool and being part of the XC pilots. Now, its more important than that, you know? And so when you were saying it comes down to currency and the way, you know, and I used to give this talk about currency too.

My, my students' and make them understand that yes, if they, if one day they realized, because now they have a new job or, or a kid, they just got a kid or they can't fly as much as they used to. For any reason, I'm probably stepping down downgrade one class, it's going to help them. You know, cause now they don't have a time to be current on the, on the glide of their flying and you know, and the, I have this students and really good friends, his name is Ron Davis is an airline pilot.

And it's been, it's been coming to SAP a lot and, and, and they're just like friends with me and Maria is him and his wife Gigi. They're so helpful. And they're just incredible human beings, but he taught me something. I mean it probably doesn't, he doesn't know that it did last. It was up a couple of weeks ago and he said, so he's flying and is, oh the fusion now I think he's fun. The fusion now, the beautiful machine and great glider buddy. And he was flying and yet his old keyboard.

So he kept his old glider, you know, and every time he doesn't have a chance to fly lot and, and, and say things that it's not the current enough, what, what he does because I usually used to tell my students, Hey, let's say at the end of the season, you were flying names like rowdy condition. You were putting yourself in big hair. Well maybe you go to a winter break. You should not be like looking for the, those condition. Don't start. Were you laugh and step down a little and choose like, and easier day and slowly build up again, confidence and everything you need to be safe with and big air because you left and on the plastic and meter per second in and be, oh, is they, you should do your first flight after three months now.

Not where you're not replying and the same condition, but it does even better. So when he's not, if he's not current, if he's not being flying for a while, he puts away his fusion, any takes out is all a Hi-Beat and he goes, why are these keyboard? Or when it suits, I thought that was the guy that's great. And I'm, but it's again and other ways. But now the reason why people step up I'll often and, and, and to early and too soon is a, the glider still in good condition.

And now they can sell it and make a big chunk of money to put into the new machine. And so the thing is, if you've flew it, if the, if this is obviously not for everybody, and there's like people that again, and have cross-reference or from previous sports, they learnt fast, they go faster and in the they've got skills and some talents, you know? So its not for everybody when I'm trying to say, if you're glad it's giving, let's say for $600 the game and now you're the 150 hours and you want to sell it because it's still in good condition.

So you can get the next step up. We'll probably your 450 hours short to be ready for the next one. Yeah. Does that make sense?

Speaker 1 (1h 5m 8s): Totally. Yeah. That's why I like, I like the hours too. And that's about right. I think I, I think the, and the number of hours can be really dangerous. Every hour is different, you know? And really are you registering or are you doing the SIV? Are you doing the Acura or you thermal in and the Owens, you know, and there's, there's a huge spread there, but what it does come down to is I think the number of hours, even if they're good hours, you know, I'm talking to thermally and, and exceeded that kinda ours where you're really learning and they need to be.

And I think we're very average and not very skilled until that number is massive way higher than, than we have traditionally said, you know, there's, there's no, you know, oh, at a hundred hours are 250 hours and you kinda suck

Speaker 2 (1h 5m 56s): Until you're in the thousands, how close they are. I mean, that's, that's the other thing. And I remember, I mean, and again, I lost my, my, my brain into this, like you did. And a lot of my friends did and I, I stopped everything and quit everything else and just went down at first into it. Single-minded like, like in maniac person and I was probably close to the thousand hours and less than two years, you know, but when it was like seven hours a day, all the time, if it's not eight hours a day, 10 hours a day is like low now the P and D air with a, before I even learn that there was a PG tube available.

And now I know now I know. And, and but, but most people don't have that. They can quit their job. They're already in the responsible adults with deals family. And so when you said, when, just how many hours you have, well, I have 150 hours. How many years you'd be flying when I'll be fine, 70. Oh, okay. Yeah,

Speaker 1 (1h 6m 60s): Right. Yeah. There's that too. There's that too? How current, what are the hours? And I mean, I hope this isn't coming across as preachy. I think it's just, you know, I think it's just what I'm getting from this part of the conversation is, you know, a humility is really important and it's important for us to be humble. And I dig it, I dig it when the, when the pilots on the BS, just kick ass and, and that's why it's really sexy. And I think that that's, you know, something to be rewarded, applauded, pushed more, I guess, tell me about risk homeostasis.

You and I had kind of a fun conversation out in California about that, you know, safe, safe, and you

Speaker 2 (1h 7m 43s): Give a good talk. So that's, that's another one. That's the same guy, Tonya spilled. And he talked about it and, and it's like, I, and my first, my first kind of, of experience with it on a T I wasn't part of the lighting that was the bike riding with Mitch when Mitch, right. And to me and makes you, and we used to live together in Nepal. And every morning at 5:00 AM in the dark, we were meeting in front of my house, the first person I, and my wife was still asleep and I would go down the stairway, my bike, my bike on the shoulder.

And Mitch was there in the dark smiling, super excited when we bought and shovels, like pulled the boat shovels in our backpack or their, you know, duration pack. And we will climb up the mountain star and called stop and the middle of the bill jump's and keep climbing a build and other jump and keep climbing, then go down like maniac, you know, and we used to do that like every morning basically, but I'll probably not the junk building, but every morning we were going bike riding in the dark and where I was pushing myself risk and to get the heart to heart attack too, try to fall Mitch feel.

And then sometimes it was the opposite downhill, but yeah. Imagine trying to fall Mitch Ryley and on the bike, right. It's going up here and it's just like insane, but, and that, so now I moved to the us and, and moved to California. And here I am with me on top of this beautiful trail up here in Santa Barbara. I don't remember if it was sunny, Cedar, or probably a Romero canyon, but let's go, let's, let's cut it short. So I look at me and I'm like, I have a full face element.

Okay. My downhill bike, I have elbow knee protection, probably add of you in a neck brace or something. You know, I was fully covered, you know, and I was ready to send it to go as hard as possible. And you know, and I look and I turn my head and meet she's next to me, the big smile his face is wearing the helmet. He was already turning for the exhale when I looked at him and he's like, to me naked, like, I mean, obviously he's not as he's wearing shorts and the, but he has no protection. And I'm like, dude, why are you not wearing and protection?

And Mitch goes well, because if I do, and then I feel safe, I'll go faster. And that's when I crashed, I get her. And I'm like, huh, that makes sense. And that's kind of like what risk of mistakes is all about now? All of the studies out there, and then you can go and you can Google these conversations. You'll find the most of these studies, the studies are on, on, on autos, like on automobile drivers'. And then if you Google risk homeostasis and aviation, you get some really interesting article.

And basically it's like, all of the studies showed that that if, if, if you tell the driver that you disabled the air bag and the abs and the, and you cut their seatbelt off immediately, they'll start driving and a safer way, the way the exempt for the S and a another interesting example is the, the, the Cirrus plane, you probably the Cirrus plane. That's the first one. They came out with the parachute and all the safety future. It was the first one, the fleet with all the doors, credible safety feature. And then, I don't know if it was a year or two later, they conduct the study and they realized that the numbers were not better, were worse.

So this is out in a way I'm fucked up. We are, the more we, we let ourselves think that we are safe because we were driving, flying something safer, the more reckless we become, you know, so

Speaker 1 (1h 11m 29s): This is the ALEKS Robbie, the other end of the pendulum that he talked about, you know, that the, he, he made a pretty solid argument that, and this is going and get swing choice of, of course, but he made a pretty soft argument for the, the, the safest way. And for him to fly as an Enzo, you know, he, he, he doesn't want it pilots that think passive safety is going to save them. They're not right for this sport because they're relying on something other than themselves.

And we all have to be pilots and command, and we've got to, you know, like you, like, I think you're going to say, and Madeline talked about it. You know, there are situations where a low end B can get in a really bad scenario. And yeah, this, this reliance on passive safety is dangerous. So that's,

Speaker 2 (1h 12m 19s): It is, it is. And it's been in a way pushed by the industry. If you look at it and you'd did the advertisement, that's the way that, that's what I think we should change. We should try to be more

Speaker 1 (1h 12m 30s): Vocal about it. Yeah,

Speaker 2 (1h 12m 32s): Exactly. Exactly. I mean, you saw the fly and I fly the blackout 17, and it's a, U-turn glide. It's a, it's, it's an acrobatic. I love that machine. Okay. It's just an incredible gliding. My and riser bag for that glider says safe and fun. So a black guy exactly. You know, I give it to two 10 students and probably eight out of 10 will crash on takeoff and landing. And, and, and, and, but the I'm the same, the one you were saying before, I need to, I'm safer when I fly the Xeno, which the liner on the, the, and the rowdy condition on the bar.

And then if I fly and there'll be, because, because again, all this safety is passive safety thing. Yes. The gliders of getting better. But if we do start relying, like you say, you're relinquishing and responsibility on this piece of plastic that then we're, we're done. We're done what miles says. I agree. I I've been saying this for years and they, it's not safe. It's safe. Or I want, I'm trying slowly to try to like, not use the word safe anymore.

And I realized that sometimes I use it, the safer, the safer is correct. Okay. But it's not safe. There's nothing safe about what we do. And the sooner you realize that problem, the sooner you start treating this as aviation and with the right amount of respect that is due for it, you know, I was joking around the corner and say, I want to make a t-shirt that says Tia. And the, these days is aviation. Then we became TFR because we throw an F in there.

So make it more fun. You know, people like the t-shirt better if you throw an F in there once in a while. But, but, but, but yeah, so we shoot, we should probably like, oh, this is the safest, this is safe. Or you're feeling a little beat, oh, this is safe. Here's your bag. No, no, no, no. It's not. It's not. And that's where it's going to stay there. You know? And then the other one is another aspect of risk homeostasis. It's called build-up risk and the state. So what is buildup risk? And the stage is when a, for example, you, you flying the XL.

Okay. When you're training for the XFL and you're all wearing the front of us and place a spot where you would like to top line, but you see that it's a sketchy one and it's a dangerous one. And you're like, oh, that's dangerous. But at one point you decide to go for it. And you somehow, you managed to put it down and you, boom, done you top blended. You're not injured. You got away with it. Okay. The next time around, when you fly in front of that place, when you look at it, you won't see as sketchy as dangerous.

That's the first time 'cause you got away with that, you know, so that's build up risk of mistake. And, and the other example I can give you as the occupied of that is doing why guy and is like doing big and, and go over very close to the cliff, really close to the ground. And then suddenly with his harness, why does it passage where bring some gravel after the Ridge, you know, but doesn't get hurt. No injure gets away with it. And the other thing that gets in the way is that when you do experience something like that, instead of going landing and, and put your hand between, between your hands and say, fuck, what did I do?

I could break my back. I couldn't kill myself doing that. You actually get a nice squirt of dopamine and the buzz of excitement. If you remember, when we were, you remember when you were giving me, we were on Skype or Logan was there, you were giving me a, you were working on my phone. You gave me this option and fly Skyhigh to see the airspace or some tool. That by the way, when I was awesome, thank you because I really loved it. And I'm in awe on the side, when you were busy doing that. And I was watching when you were doing this, this pilot taking off forward, he gets deflation on the right deflation on the left loses control of his main Logan.

Logan is in the background, screaming, target, target, target, IE, managed to jump off, take off boom, pump, everything is open. He flies away. And he goes, well, that's exactly the buzz of excitement that I was talking about,

Speaker 1 (1h 16m 59s): Celebrating less than mediocrity,

Speaker 2 (1h 17m 3s): But that's, that's build up risk obviously, as you know, I mean it's, and so now once we know like that, okay. And, and we experience, again, that kind of situation, maybe we to have to go and punish ourselves and go and land and a good flame day and put, and sit on the rock with your hand, with your head between your hands, but taken notes and mental notes. And when you land think about it. Yeah. You know, to avoid that buildup.

And,

Speaker 1 (1h 17m 33s): And I had an incident, I don't even know if I ever told anybody about it. It was the very last day of the Sierra. We did this thing called surfing the Sierras. It was my first big bivy. It was from waltz up to the Oregon border and Antwan neurons and Nick grace and Eric read and Oriel Fernandez, all these pilots, they were just Brad sander all way above my level. And I was just a kid in a candy store with these guys. It was, it was amazing.

And, and as the expedition went on, you and Brad got hurt and Oriel saw bear every doubt. And, you know, so, and it thins out as we, as we head north and at the end, it's, it's just Antwan and Eric read and eye, and it was really stabiles October. And it was getting to the very end of the season. And I can't remember where they were when I was trying to dig out. And it was really light. And, and, but I'm still pretty new pilots, 2012. So I've been flying and six, seven years at that point.

And I made the mistake of turning too tight to the hill. And, and in the back end of the term hit a bunch of Cinque. And I had that nightmare scenario where suddenly I was, you know, a lot of energy and going to pound right into the hill. And I went, I landed, crashed right. In between two big boulders. You know, I mean, if I'd hit the Boulder on one side or the other side, and would've been game over

Speaker 2 (1h 19m 6s): The glider, no,

Speaker 1 (1h 19m 8s): I was just the spiral. I mean, it was basically just circling in this thermal, but on the backside of the thermal, I hit more sink than I was expecting too. And so instead of doing figure eights, instead of doing what you learn and what you teach and what you should of done, you know, on with the big boys now. And, and I, I crashed, I hit the ground. I was so embarrassed. Oh my God, I was so embarrassed and just couldn't believe that I'd done it. And I don't think, I don't think I told those guys, but it was the shot of the adrenaline was real.

It was like, whoa, I got away with it. You know, only because I was on the ground that I, I got to think about it. I got to think, wow, that was incredibly stupid. And for years after that, I didn't, I was so careful about turning close to the hill. You know, it was really one of those things where

Speaker 2 (1h 20m 0s): The movie that spun your glider and fly away from it, you wouldn't go there and say, yeah,

Speaker 1 (1h 20m 9s): Yeah, exactly. It was, it was

Speaker 2 (1h 20m 12s): And nothing behind to learn when from, sorry. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (1h 20m 16s): And like you said, I mean, why do you have Shapiro always talks about it? Was it, it was an inexpensive mistake, you know, and we need those, those are important to get, you got to get some inexpensive mistakes because you learn it and you go, and it makes sense, you know, but how many people have pounded really hard doing that, you know? And, and all of these in all the years, a lot, lot of people have done that and, you know, and you don't walk away from it. And, you know, so I got lucky. And, but yeah, it's that, that it was definitely that, you know, Ooh, I got away with that.

You know,

Speaker 2 (1h 20m 51s): When we talk about it a lot and SIV, and after the, the spin briefing, because in your case, you didn't, but, and probably most, most cases and the, the it's it's and, and an accidental spin, cuz you again, and you're supposed to do figure eight. And the instructor told you that at the beginning, you should to figure it until you clear the range and then you can do your 360, but then one day and you think you got it. And now you do your first turn towards the Ridge. And you're down.

When you get pushed towards you see the ground, the terrain coming in fast, and now you try to turn away from it and go more on the brake, on the break and you end up staying in the glider. So that's, that's one of the most common accidental spinning paragliding one is when you're terminating, but that's not really common. The, the, I think the most frequent one is that scenario. And that's why I asked you if you spun it. And yeah, Dylan,

Speaker 1 (1h 21m 46s): Tell me about this kind of ties into what we were talking about before, but the con well with instruction and, and, and instructors at varying levels. But tell me about the conflict of interest in the system. And I don't, I don't know if you can speak to it two and other countries. Is it, is it universal or is it,

Speaker 2 (1h 22m 7s): Oh, it's, it's, it's, it's not, there are some places where it's not like this and innovation, I think in general, it's, it's never like this and other branches of it, but I mean, so yeah, so first I want to say that I don't want, I'm not judging or pointing a finger or attacking anybody. I think there's a system that it's, it's like this, and I'm not saying that the people that are doing it are responsible for it, or they created to kind of get some, some kind of a vantage out of it.

I think it's weird when I look at a system that allows the same person, the cells, you, you know, gears on the glider, on his reserve instruments, whatever. And, you know, and, and I said, you know, to, to really, to give you your ratings, I don't think, I don't think makes any sense, you know? So I gave you the example. I mean, it was, and what if you go to a Ford dealership and the same guy that you buy an $85,000 truck from and gives you your license and you're driving license and that's that the road will turn into a shit show, you know?

And again, it's not the point. The finger is not to judge anybody or attack anybody, but I think it's something that in the future we time okay. Should be addressed. You know? And I think the only when I start, so basically what you're now, the country where you do, you, you go in the school and your instructor will say, we'll sell you your gears. We'll teach you how to fly. Will even prepare, prepare you for the exam. So they will go through the exam with you, but then you have to travel to a neighboring and region or state and to do your exam with, with a commission on the examiner.

Yeah. Like the few instructor that'll be, I hired and pay from, from the Federation. So the local youth and say, okay, and they don't know you, and that's where you do your exam, you know, and brilliant. And again, I know that in a situation where we are, it's all like a, Hey, it's already difficult like this. We don't have pilots, we don't have instructors. And it's just like out of convenience that we were doing what we're doing, the way we're doing it.

But again, we're, this is a young nation. And if others did better, we should do better than them. You know, because looking at them, we can take their system and they start to start when we, we, you can do and copy and paste, you know, and then make it better, you know, because that's, that's what younger generation are supposed to do. That's that's improv. Yeah. It's our duty to do that.

Speaker 1 (1h 24m 57s): Him, you're a fan of, you're a fan of flow and Mihai chick sent me hi, and you and I have had some good talks about, about psychology and flow state. You're incorporating psychology now into your courses as well, which I think is kind of nouveau and fun and, and important. Let's, let's, let's touch on that. And then I wanted to, and on your recent reserve toss that you had, because I think that was the, that was, that was a good, there's some good takeaways

Speaker 2 (1h 25m 33s): There. Yeah. Yeah. So yeah. We're going to probably scare people away from the clinics. They're going to say why this do, instead of telling me what to teach me at the pool strings is going to keep me there and it's going to start talking about psychology. Yeah. Well, yeah. So if you're about to come to a clinic yeah. Get ready for that. There's going to be a few hours where we do talk about that. We talk about decision-making process. We talk about dealing with fear and Parkline, and we talk, we touch the light, prepared this new talk about flow and not say in regards to safety recently.

And I try to throw it out there. And it all actually started with you when your podcast, this season. And it's a couple of years ago. I think I didn't, I didn't, I didn't use to listen to podcasts. As you know, I live probably almost like eight years in Africa, probably eight to 10 years in Africa, then 70 is in the power of never good internet connection. I didn't even know what podcast is. Logan and Chris Garcia made a lot of fun of me. Oh, Dylan. And this guy just discovered podcast.

Well, so when I did, and especially if the good ones, the, like Logan said that through to the guy, oh yeah, this is the government and this and tube to the episode with the Adele. That's the first, that was, that was the same. That was really good. The lunch. And she mentioned chick's and behind the high cheeks and behind, and, and the flow, I didn't immediately like did research on it. I remember one day I was driving home, listen to the TedTalk and dairy was the, I checked and behind. And I was like, oh wow. And I kinda like, wow, this, this, the staff is really cool.

So I bought the book, read the book, and that's where it all started. That's what I realized that when I was doing, I was, I was always sold out six months in advance. We had like a lot like good success with the school and everything was going great, but I suddenly wasn't happy anymore with the way I was doing it. I'm like, I cannot, I taught. It was just like, it was limiting. I was like, I needed to do more. I needed to keep changing. I needed to keep learning something new and needed to keep throwing new staff into the mix.

And the cause I hold that to my students, you know, it's not, you can't just have a, I was never, and we were never an SIV checklist kind of thing. And probably, you know, that I always start my Tuesday Brizi and say, this is not a checklist. Nobody should come here and, and expect to have to follow a program. Okay. So you come in here and adapt to the class is actually the course of training that will have to grow around you, who you are and your face, you're reading you're skills and your conference zone, you know, and, and that's what I tried to do, but still, that was not enough.

And so I started studying more and more and more and more and podcast and pieces of view or show and pieces of Judy and articles and, and thanks to the citation and the show. And I've put together more talks and the, and start talking to more and more about the psychologist, because I think we here a lot that the Parkline, and it's, it's, it's more of a mental sport than a physical sport. Then it, the reality is the hundred percent you are.

And I mean, it's all of that. So you're going in and, and potassium coming out from those pumps, it mental and physical it's. And the reality is a hundred percent. And in Europe there's no physical and mental, but it's true that we hear that a lot, but we don't talk about it. And now we don't encourage students to dig into it, you know? And some people, some people do like Mitch does, Mitch is always like, and Mitch's into a lot.

And I heard him many times like Logan will do it too obviously. And, but probably not all the instructor, you know, and they, you know, so why are we saying that it's such a man that is mostly a mental sports and, and, and not a physical sport. If we don't encourage people to, to, to dig into it a little more recently, the last couple of, couple of clinics I did at the beginning. So students, before they come to us to a clinic, they fill out this form where they, this, they put down their experience, their glider color size reserve.

It was the pack. And at the end, what you expect from your SIV, why would you like to get out of it? And, you know, and they're all like, oh, I want to become a safer pilot. They're not the pilots. I want to get to know my glider, but no one, no. And, and this is what I've been telling my students, no one ever mentioned. I'd like to know myself on there, this kind of condition, the pressure and stress and, and cause cause the three, the three main components, I mean, we fly.

One is the glider. Two is the harness and the term, and one is us, our bringing the brackets this. And so I think the basic understanding of the human mind and the way it works is can go a long way when, when it comes down to fire and running and we should encourage all our students to do at the end of the clinic, I put it in the, in the group chat that they use the before, before the clinic to carpool share camps, I always post at least four or five books and articles and podcasts and the student encourage them to like keep digging into what we just scratched the surface from.

Let's put those,

Speaker 1 (1h 31m 10s): Put those what you suggest and all of those in the show notes. And I remember from the talks that there that's a talk in itself. We don't have the time and it really dig into all that now. But I would, I would say the same. I mean, I just got to experience it in the XL ops. You know, the, the, the physical output is insane, but you know, how you do well in that race is, is between your two years and, you know, for sure. And so, yeah, that, that's great. Well, we'll, we'll, we'll put, we'll add a bunch of stuff.

The show notes from that.

Speaker 2 (1h 31m 41s): Yeah. We can, we can put those articles in and, and books. They that's the only brief stay in the, if, if you still have time that I wanted to mention about flows because oftentimes we were here talking to people, talking about Flo and the zone, but it's mostly related to paragliding performance optimization. Okay. It's never, and what whatnot, what I, after I'm not unstudied. And again, obviously I want to read more and more and more. I started writing it down and the talk that again, and I started using it, the SIV, the relation between the being and the flow state and the safety, or we safe her and flow than when we're not.

And so not just like we, we're not just like performance skyrocketing and the shortcut to mastery in and, and, and all that advantage from this is from the state. But when we say when we were in the flow and I think, yes, we are. We're not just like, we're not, we're not just like increasing our performance. We're not just like improving our performance. We are safer. Sure. You know? And so obviously when you talk to the student, they don't have much experience and they're still, they're still in this small bubble on the way, their sphere of understanding, going back to the, the, the young pilots is still doesn't speak the language.

And, you know, like we often make the mistake. We tell people, oh, you have to look around and you should look for a sign for birds. And sometimes we don't stop and think easy ready for that. Cause you know what, like when you start driving a car, you need to think, oh, especially in Europe for the state and you need to drink cloth, brake, gas gear, you know, and turning science, the signal's and stuff. And, and you're lucky if you can see the pedestrian crossing you, you'll a lack. If you don't kill someone the first few months, you know, then it becomes like muscle memory.

And now you can still look around, you can still kind of multitask while you're driving, whatever. Same for a potty gliding pilot at the beginning, you S you still have to think, look, lean break. When you want to turn, you know, you still hear the voice of your instructor saying that. And so when you tell a pilot to, to look for birds, when they're the bubble, their sphere understanding is so small, it will expand your time and experience. And there'll be able to see the birds to see the butterfly trap and the term and the terminal day. We'll see the other pilot's climbing faster.

And then, but at the beginning, when we tell them that again, we moved that bar to fast, and now we might put them in a position where everything becomes overwhelming and therefore dangerous. You know, that there's been being, I think, well, it's, I guess it's a long one. That's the flow of the, we'll have a discussion about one another. And, and I know you're probably right. The subject really

Speaker 1 (1h 34m 33s): Well. There's so many books and stuff on it, and they got the flow lab and everything else. Dylan, last, last one that I want to touch on is a, the takeaway from your reserve toss in Santa Barbara, the spring, that was more, not even the toss and all that. That was, and it being exciting butt benign. It was more of the reason for it, I think is great. You know, I have incorporated this and my own life. It was, that was, that was pretty interesting.

Speaker 2 (1h 34m 59s): Yeah. Yeah. I think this, I hope there's something to learn from, from that. And even if all my friends still making fun of me for that, but so I was flying before I started applying, I guess. So with Maria and my wife, we have, we said we did set some rules. And then when it comes to the flying, if I'm flying and one of them is the phone call. So if she calls me, I have my phone and my flight deck, like everybody else.

And I, and I use also as an instrument would others and stuff. But if she calls me and I'm flying, I will answer the phone. And if I don't answer, she knows that I'm flying and she doesn't call me again, unless it's an emergency. Okay. So it's something happened to her or the kid, then she'll call me again. And if I see the phone ring and the second time now I know it's an emergency and I have to answer it and deal with it. Okay. So that day she drove me uptake for the kids and the car. And when I was there, we'd go see, and we've got to take off.

It was not really fly yet. And it was hot. And she decided to leave because we said that we would probably ask, we were probably going to have to wait an hour or 10 minutes. We don't know. And so she left now, she is driving down the mountains. Why and the road near the kid's 10 minutes later, probably when we were in the air, good cycle, boom, boom. You know, that works and it's not working, its not working and boom sell and it works. And everybody's like bump, bump, bump, let's get out and want to go and start as possible. So now I'm flying and we climb up above the rest and we start going towards the back and, and, and falling.

Chris, Chris is in front of me and I see, it's like, he's also planning to lay in there, man. And he's going through some pretty good and turbulence, you know, is glad it's kind of all over the place and it keeps going and goes through it. And I know that I'm going to have to deal with the same thing. So I'm full bar, all my bees and the phone goes off. The phone goes off the first time I looked down and I see as Maria and I don't answer obviously coz of, I mean rough BRAF air and it stopped ringing and immediately started ringing again.

Okay. So that's when I, I forgot everything I teach maybe tonight creature teacher, whatever. And I stayed on bar. I didn't, I didn't raise my bar. I just let go of the bees. I had battery the gloves on, I was not using obviously, cause it was not that cold yet, but I, I could not swipe the phone open to answer now in my head. And she was driving down the month and with the kids and the windy road and all of his crazy images are starting to like, like going on, going on in my head.

And I managed to take off my gloves and answered the phone. And when I answered the front of my quote, what happened and, and she said, your enrich is not on, okay. I got home, hang up the phone, put it back on the, put it back on the, on the flight deck. And the second and I put a sticker to the Velcro. I lost probably 70% of the gladder one and I'm still in full bar.

So I'm in rough Hare on the Xenon full bar, lost the 70% big crevasse started going straight into an Otter of, and I'm not that high. I don't know if the night, I don't know why am I and I start trying to recover it. The auto, it was the big one. So, and I brought it out an auto rotation for the first time and immediately went straight back into it. And that's when I saw the ground coming and coming fast. So I grabbed the, I tossed the first, when he went into the line, even if I toss really hard and the second one opening and saves me basically.

So without when, as you can and we all have, we all, its difficult when we do start. And when that, like what we do, it's, it's tough on are partners and stuff and people will love. And, and then, and again, this year we had again accident and we lost people that we love people that we know when people that we just heard about. So when you're married to someone I guess, and you have kids with him knowing that he flies and he can die every time he does this thing and it's normal to be anxious and, and struggle with it, you know?

And it's, it's, it's very hard and, and sometimes are partners and ended up pouring that anxiety into us, maybe even before we fly. And I think that's, that's toxic. I know we can do everything to try to understand and to be there and talk about it. But I guess for that one too, there's a time and a place that should never be even the night before a big flight. That's not the time and the place you talk about and anxiety and lead and pour into us right before a big flight or on your way to take off even more hours.

And, and so when we do set certain rules and this, again, this is aviation, those rules are there to keep us safe. You know, I, I remember blaming Maria. I mean, I was, I wasn't blaming Marie. I was pissed. Well I probably actually I did. And it was stupid because I should of just not answered the phone right there. I should of got off bar spiral down on top of land or put myself in a safer position, answered the phone and then get really mad because now my flight was over, but that would've been the right reaction instead of like, oh, I lost it.

I love the idea that something happened to my kids and my wife. I, I, my brain stopped working and I just dropped the everything except for the BARR and that, and, and I go and see your struggle. So,

Speaker 1 (1h 40m 60s): I mean, I guess this is blatantly obvious, but just to make sure it gets pointed out is it's also really good to have a very specific rule about very specific things. You had the rule, it got broken and it had consequences and you know, and it was, she just loves you and you're worried about her and it's, you know, it was all totally innocent, but it was, I'm sure led to a conversation like, Hey, we have to have these rules because they're important.

And I didn't, I didn't have that role with my wife. You know, I didn't even think about that. And that's a real, but it's a really good rule. It's a really, it really makes sense. And, and, and the other thing you just mentioned that I hadn't thought about the first time around was, you know, missing a big flight who gives a shit, we've got a million, two opportunities for that, you know, and I actually did that in the twenties. So 19 race to my great detriment, you know, all I had to do, I took off without my jacket and my stuff because Ben and I were going to go fly over to K to another hill and start there I've launched.

And it was on, we didn't think it was going to be on. And I ended up freezing to death and blowing my flight. All I had to do was land. And all I had to do was just top land, right. Where he was, get my stuff and take off again. I've lost two minutes, you know, it's no big deal. Yeah. So I mean, it's, it's good to think about, okay, well, this might take a little bit longer, but what's the safe way to play this here.

Speaker 2 (1h 42m 30s): Yeah. Well on that and that position was there any of them? It, yeah. And, and it was totally, and actually Maria says that she didn't know how I was flying and was at the beginning was putting mean, you didn't know when I was flying and you drove me to take off, but she heard probably us saying that maybe it's not probably going to be another hour, you know? So in our head, so I was not flying. And that's why I, even if the, maybe she thought that my phone was on nearby and, and I needed to hear a ring and maybe it was, my phone is always on silent.

I never have a ring. I, I, you know, already, I told you, so Maria is nuts. She's crazy. She's really crazy. Now let me say this another one when she she's nuts and she's, but she's, she's just, she's the most incredible human being, I, everything that you saw, the clinic and everything, everything, all of this exists just because of, and the SAB instructor, everything else she's to the company,

Speaker 1 (1h 43m 31s): She might be nuts, but it's actually your fault. You, if you would have had your inmate, John, you would have been fine and you made the mistake and it's your fucking fault, but

Speaker 2 (1h 43m 40s): You're not helping, you know, she's going to listen to this. You're not good. The, you know, our, our significant

Speaker 0 (1h 43m 46s): Others are always right. One of the ones that are the ones doing dumb sport Dilan, I appreciate it. Your you're time is awesome. Your great, and what you do, I get so much out of your, your training and your accurate reading and, and watching you teach these students to go have fun in the absurdity. And can't wait to come back out with you with Ben and Benny and the small and do more accurate training and, and true peer training really came in handy just very short time afterwards when I had that crash here and Somali soup.

Thank you for that as well. And thank you for the debrief and thank you for being you, dude. I appreciate

Speaker 3 (1h 44m 25s): It. Thank you. Thank you so much, man.

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Thank you.


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