Andrey Kuznetsov has been on the national sky diving team for many years, holds several world records and the genius record (100 way canopy formation record) and has been a long-time test pilot for reserves. He made the transition quite easily from sky diving to paragliding in 2009 and skipped the C class altogether as he found it too slow! He recently flew across Vermont and landed on the beach and owns AirQuest paragliding, a professional reserve packing and line-trimming company. In this episode we talk about his history of sky diving, the transition to XC paragliding, why SO many people don’t pack their reserve correctly, trimming gliders, why it matters and a lot more. There’s some terrific information here. Enjoy!
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Speaker 1 (0s): Hi there everybody. Welcome to episode 196 of the Cloud-based, ma'am, can you believe it? We're almost 10 years strong here. Pretty amazing. Some fun things are happening in the Paragliding world. The chalet I could fly, just went down Tan, gave Reno go, gave Kriegel a heck of a run for his money. But Kriegel got him in the end as he does, and the worlds are going on, and the Red Bull Exels is about to start. I'm heading over there in a week to run around with those guys and do some reporting for the fans.
It should be pretty fun. I'm really looking forward to that, getting away from this house build. But yeah, 196, we're gonna be hopefully doing another book that'll be based on the second a hundred shows. And that's coming right up. I'll have to get to work on another book. My guest today is Andrey Kav. I hope I'm pronouncing that right. If I'm not Andrea, I apologize. Andrey is the owner of Airquest Paragliding out in New England.
He's obviously not from New England with that name, but he's been over here for a while. And he was a longtime national member of the Skydiving team. He own, he has a whole bunch of world records and he, in including the Genius record, which is part of the Hyundai hundred way canopy formation. And he was a longtime Reserve test pilot. So Airquest does a lot of repacks and he reached out to me after the show about the Reserve.
Well, Reserve toss went right, but after the Glider had a line failure, maybe, or maybe not, we don't know, but the, the show we did a few weeks back and he had some thoughts on that and a lot of thoughts on repacks and reserves and how to throw 'em. And the transition from Skydiving to Paragliding. He never even flew a sea glider. He flew a 200 K flight on a B in Texas just a couple years into his flying in 2012 and just skipped the whole sea altogether.
Went straight to a D because it was too slow compared to Skydiving. So rather different progression and a lot of really interesting things came outta his history in Skydiving and transitioned into flying. So he found a lot of it pretty straightforward. And I don't know a ton about Skydiving, so I found all that really fascinating and I think you will too. So enjoy this talk with Andrey about reserves and records and doing some cool flights back east to the beach and, and taking care of your kit.
Cheers, Andrey, welcome to the Cloudbase. Bam. Thanks for reaching out and telling me about your, your history a bit. We're gonna be talking a lot about Skydiving and your Canopy experience and the crossover into Paragliding and your company. And specifically we're gonna talk, sounds like a lot about reserves and the importance of packing correctly is you're seeing a lot of really bad packing.
So welcome to the show and, and thanks for sharing your time with us.
Speaker 2 (3m 40s): Hi Gavin. Thank you for invitation. I'm happy to share it. My experience with Skydiving and with Para as well, I will said uhm expert in Reserve parachutes, which is our part of very important gear.
Speaker 1 (3m 58s): Yeah, you're, you're a Reserve, you were, you were a Reserve test pilot in Skydiving. What, what does that mean? I, I don't even know. What does that look
Speaker 2 (4m 7s): Like? It was very interesting part of my career. I was national team, Kyde national team for many years and we had coordination with military i i team and they asked us to test Ava type Reserve for Sky because they use the, for the military staff. And they, this day it was re rag resort parachute for Sky Diver.
It's not exist anymore, but it was very interesting. It was made 1981, it's called P Z 81. It's rag type. You can control your engine if you need to and we test the stuff. It was very interesting experience.
Speaker 1 (4m 57s): Huh. And then were you doing a lot of, you know, testing on prototypes and that kind of thing? As the years went by,
Speaker 2 (5m 4s): It was not the prototype and this year, this Reserve was already exist for nine years and we, they working for the modify this stuff, make it bigger because you can't all the heavy stuff and we try to give our expertise if it's possible or not because the bulk stuff, it's not safe. And during, if you trouble is your and the free fall, it can kill you if it's too big or not too, a Reserve has not correct opening precision.
Speaker 1 (5m 37s): Yeah, sure. Way more critical when you're at terminal.
Speaker 2 (5m 40s): Yes, for sure. I saw how many jumps. Yeah, go ahead. Yeah,
Speaker 1 (5m 46s): With one Reserve, how many jumps do you have?
Speaker 2 (5m 48s): I have over 4,000 jumps.
Speaker 1 (5m 51s): Was that a four?
Speaker 2 (5m 52s): 4,000? Yeah,
Speaker 1 (5m 53s): 4,000. Wow. And how much would that cost to do? 4,000 jumps?
Speaker 2 (6m 0s): Actually in my country it was for free.
Speaker 1 (6m 4s): Wow. Really long. Cause you're on the national team and
Speaker 2 (6m 7s): Yes, and before when I started it was, it's very similar system. Like in US you have the teenager. I started when I was 15 years old and it was free for us, for the new teenager. You go to the club and they give you everything for free included food. You can like spend weeks in the camp and just practice the idea behind. Very smart run by government because all generation, young generation after 18, they have to go to the army of Air Force and make a service.
Right. And if government spent money before that, you already ready for, for the Army, for the Air Forces. Okay. This was the idea behind.
Speaker 1 (6m 52s): Sure, sure, sure. And how did you start getting into, I would assume with the national team, you're doing the, when you're flying with the a hundred other people and you're doing formations and acrobatics and that kind of thing, is that just the natural progression make it more exciting?
Speaker 2 (7m 8s): Yeah, it's, I was crazy about when I, I went to drop zone every, almost every my day, you know, like, doesn't matter if it's rainy or it's cloudy, I went to the drop zone and just to see opportunity to make a jump every day. And I was the one of the skydive who made more sky jump in the year. And after that I, I saw future for the Skydiving and I was decided jump to the canopy formation discipline because it's very interesting, very exciting.
And, and I was dreaming about actually. And after that I was on the local team, then we went cup of camps. I, the guys from the big team saw me, they invite me to jump to another camp. And finally I am a national team.
Speaker 1 (8m 3s): And what national team was it? You forgive me for my lack of, you know, I, I can't really tell the, the difference between the various Baltic languages. So are are, are you Russian?
Speaker 2 (8m 17s): Yes, I am.
Speaker 1 (8m 18s): And so were you in Moscow or where were you trained?
Speaker 2 (8m 21s): The team was around the Moscow. Yeah, we were trained around the Moscow. But the country is huge and coach collect all good guys from the all country, country is huge. And we, we have selection who can pass the selection, jump to the next world. And after that they see the best of the best pilot. We go to the final team before every championship, how it was run. And after that we made the team and we start training for that.
Speaker 1 (8m 55s): And it sounds like you were pretty crazy about it. So how many years were you super involved in Sky? I mean was this your job?
Speaker 2 (9m 2s): Yes, it was my full-time job.
Speaker 1 (9m 5s): Wow. That'd be a fun full-time job.
Speaker 2 (9m 7s): I know, but when, when you are young, you don't have family, you don't have responsibility, it's good. Of course. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1 (9m 12s): Yeah, yeah. Sure. So I, I don't, you know, you do hear about accidents in, in Skydiving. I understand that, you know, the, the risk goes up quite a bit when you start flying big formations just because of the speed, you know, and, and, and mid airs can be something, but how would you, now that you're flying a lot and you're Paragliding a lot and and more involved in in in free flight in in that, under that canopy, under a paraglider, how would you compare the risk of the two in, in terms of potential and accidents and you know, is it similar?
Is it way different?
Speaker 2 (9m 52s): It's different because Skydiving, the higher altitude you have, you, the more time for cutaway you have, you can, you can fix the problem. You know, the, the only way to fix problem in Skydiving special in canopy formation discipline, it's cutaway. You just push the button and your main guider fly away and you use your Reserve. When you wait, you jump out on the side of the problem. Usually if you can take a look on the pictures, you'll see how the canopy formation wrap is.
It's like kind of several guiders messed up very fast and every sky diver and my team had like at least two hook knife at least. Mm. Because you never know which hand will be blocked, you know, by wine. You have to cut this out. Oh, I carry three knife because one knife help me to cut the fabric if I need it. You, you are if like some canopy on your team teammate canopy wrap around your body, you don't have space for throw your Reserve.
You have to cut the fabric and throw your Reserve through the hole. It's only way to survive.
Speaker 1 (11m 3s): Wow. That sounds pretty intense.
Speaker 2 (11m 5s): Yeah, I mean it's, we, we had this in the past. This is why like on our last record when we made in Florida, when we made hundred wave formation, every skydiver had at least a hook drive at least. Cause they are from, we were from the 14 countries. It's, we collect experience from all world.
Speaker 1 (11m 28s): Imagine that's, you know, and, and the use of a hook knife is certainly recommended in our sport. But it's not ubiquitous is it? There's a lot of pilots that don't have one.
Speaker 2 (11m 36s): Exactly. It's very bad because special for a copilot you must,
Speaker 1 (11m 41s): Yeah,
Speaker 2 (11m 41s): You must
Speaker 1 (11m 42s): I think the acro pilots are more switched onto that because they're, you know, they throw the Reserve warrant and, and and their and their potential. Especially if they're, if they're working on the infinite, the potential for getting gift wrapped is it goes way up. There's been a couple of scary videos that have come out this year. Kevin Philip over, over Inia and I just saw, just had on the show, we haven't released it yet, but Philip Zelner had a very similar incident where he got gift drafted working on the Infinity. He was actually coming out of it and screwed it up and got gift wrapped and whoa, you start going down real fast.
Speaker 2 (12m 17s): Exactly. Threefold. This is why the, it's different between Skydiving and Paraguayan. If you have altitude, you have time to fix it.
Speaker 1 (12m 26s): Yep.
Speaker 2 (12m 26s): If you don't have altitude, you screw Yeah. And Paraguayan, it's not free fall. You have more time for fix this. This is why my instructor told me when they start 2009, first 2009 Paraguayan, he told me, if you survive first several months, you okay because he, you know, after Sky, because Sky had the different reaction on the gui, you have to react faster than Parago Parago, you need a little bit slower reaction.
You don't have to be so crazy fast and in sky dynamic you must, and this is why if you not kill your GUI in the first several months, you okay, you will fly.
Speaker 1 (13m 9s): Really?
Speaker 2 (13m 10s): Yeah. It's exactly about because it's, you need a like much faster reaction to turn your glider if you need to.
Speaker 1 (13m 18s): Do you feel like having the background in Skydiving really helped you progress faster than normal? For
Speaker 2 (13m 26s): Sure,
Speaker 1 (13m 26s): For sure. When, when you came over to Paragon just because of your canopy experience and your maybe what, what other experience would be very valuable there? Just,
Speaker 2 (13m 34s): Just it's approach for the vending approach. You can see the different, you can see the vending function. It, you can like see the dangers on the winding. It's like my, I automatically see the wines automatically see the where I can land, where I cannot land. It's interesting, it's like it helped me a lot with my final approach and you can like, you have more observant formation around like Bianca always happy to see when they say, oh bird here, birds here, let's go, let's go this way, you know, because your IAC 360 ramp, you have to see all small detail.
I mean the same like both Paragon the same. Very similar for Sky as well.
Speaker 1 (14m 21s): Interesting. So it's a very observational heavy sport. Correct. Yeah. That's interesting because it doesn't, it wouldn't strike me as that I, and is that because of flying in formations
Speaker 2 (14m 33s): Involved in the formation pilots specific,
Speaker 1 (14m 35s): You just really keeping track of everybody else?
Speaker 2 (14m 37s): Yes, exactly. For specific and formation. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (14m 41s): Now is this true too? I I've heard of, you know, when when, when you're in free fall, so you haven't released your canopy and you're doing all the formations that, that the mid airs can often be fatal in the air cuz the speeds. Is that, is that something that's very rare or
Speaker 2 (14m 58s): Is that
Speaker 1 (14m 58s): Happen
Speaker 2 (14m 59s): Every once in a while? Not really. Usually for the canopy formation discipline you have to, you have only two, three second delay. You don't have real free fall. You throw your main guider. Like after, depends where you are in the position in your team. Like for example, I was number one who throw a parachute because every other three pilots next to me, they saw when I throw, they opened it immediately. And we after like two, three second threefold, we already have permission. It's like four diamond.
We already have it. When you open it, we just, you mean
Speaker 1 (15m 32s): You, you you get outta the plane and you're together that fast?
Speaker 2 (15m 35s): No, yeah. We just jump out three or four people at the same time from the plane. And we, one, like for example, I was number one who open the para parachute the first one. And another guy saw me, he through his glider open up and like three other, and we have like, like steps 1, 2, 3, 4. And we connected to each other. And this is because like 10 years ago, 15 years ago, it was the second year started when first pilot jump out of the plane, this is our team and we had like eight team, eight way team formation.
It's like, and and the last guys who touched the formation, second em stop. This is how we made several world records. Like 26, 26, 24 second for the four old guys build a formation. Cause every like couple of every second it's come you have to be like very precisely done what you are doing, you know, you know, you have to know all position, your body position and next to your pilot because sometimes you can fight with his direction to help to minimize the time.
Speaker 1 (16m 48s): And are those those Skydiving training centers, you know where you get in the tube and you can, you can practice all that? Is that, is that
Speaker 2 (16m 55s): Really important? It's it's for different, different discipline. It's important but it's not for us because we do all training without canopy when parachute is open.
Speaker 1 (17m 6s): Okay. Okay, gotcha. Interesting. So gotta ask you some Hollywood stuff before we move on to the importance of, you know, just some fun stuff. But you know, I just saw that my neighbor down in Twin Miles, Dasher and, and John, I forget his last name, but they're, you know, they're part of the Red Bull Air Force and they did a bunch of training with Tom Cruise for the, the latest mission Impossible where he's jumping off a bike and base jumping. It looks like quite a cool stunt. But you know, there's been point break of course originally, you know, the original surf film with Patrick Swayze and you know, they're jumping out of a plane without a, without a Reserve.
Is this just complete horse shit or is that possible? Is is
Speaker 2 (17m 47s): The stuff been done? It's possible. It's just possible. It's, it's possible. We just created a lot of risk because you like the more professional you are, you you have more control in it. And I don't know, you probably saw a lot of video and record when guys landing without open parachute the freefall and like big net on the ground. Yes. The problem is, I was gonna ask about that. Yeah, you have to wait, try directly to this net, you know, and I know it's like the first, the first guys who made it, who landed it on the empty boxes, remember the boxes, it was more crazy, you know, but that's crazy.
It, but you know, people tried to make a show, you know, for no matter what. You know, even with the high risk, it's still
Speaker 1 (18m 32s): My fav my favorite of those guys are the Frenchies. You know, the, the, i I think they call themselves the Frenchies, but they're the ones that do all the music and they're always doing the craziest stunts. They had one where they're driving across a bridge down in southern France and they all huck, they all jump off the, the top of a bus. They're driving across the bridge on a bus and they jump off and wingsuit eyes just so, so did you get into base jumping quite a bit too? Or was it
Speaker 2 (18m 57s): Just kinda No, this is why, the reason why I don't jump on bridge jump because from my feeling, the more altitude I have, the most safe I am.
Speaker 1 (19m 7s): Yeah.
Speaker 2 (19m 8s): Because Bay jump, I, I told, I I have a lot of friends who is Bay Jumper and like several already passed away because of that ex crazy experience. And the one one friend told the the worst altitude they have is them giving more adrenaline. Yeah. And finally they moved
Speaker 1 (19m 32s): The more you reduce the margin. Exactly. Exciting it is. That's just a recipe
Speaker 2 (19m 36s): Disaster. Exactly. And, and the they like jump from 50, 60 meters. It's like kind of limited, you know?
Speaker 1 (19m 43s): Yeah. I mean and, and that's why Wing suiting has the numbers that it does and now, and more and more speed flying is, is apparently the numbers are getting pretty similar and I don't know if that's because there's more people doing it, but it's, you know, in in wing suiting it's the closer you are to the terrain, the more exciting it is and it's just, man, it doesn't take much to, to screw it up. I have not done it. That's just from talking to my friends who do. But they all have, there's a lot of R ps in, in in that community.
Speaker 2 (20m 14s): Be be, believe me, I had so many engine like that very it close because when you are young, you can screw on the way, you can make a swoop on the ground just very well. And just like tal fight and all that, it's still, you know, how many times my bad touch the ground faster than I want. Yeah. You know, like yeah. It's,
Speaker 1 (20m 35s): We aren't as resilient as we start to get older and lose our hair too. Is are we Exactly. Be a little more careful about that kinda stuff. We don't bounce quite as well. Okay. Let's, let's switch to, you know, the rea the reason you said, hey, I, I'd really like to, to get on the show is really your, your your business side of things. You fix gliders, which we can talk about, but it's mostly the repacking and you were saying before we started recording that you see a lot of mistakes in Repacks.
That was surprising to me. I I would expect some, but you're, you're seeing a lot. Let's, let's go through, and this is an audio podcast, so this is gonna challenge, you know, being able to articulate this without showing it. But what are, what are the steps or what are the things that people are missing and can you take us through a proper repack?
Speaker 2 (21m 27s): Yes. How I said I saw like u usually my, my business running like was five years for the Reserve rep packing and how you said I started dreaming and weather fixing and other stuff with the canopy. The Reserve issue most of the time is the guider. The, the pilot cannot don't know how install correctly. Usually they like flip the Reserve upside down and all wines, if you throw Reserve, all wines will be on your hands.
It's one problem. Another issue is if the handoff connect not properly to the internal container, like the more dangerous pilot is PPG guys power mode. They send me Reserve with the outer container. When I open the outer container, I saw like, guys, it's crazy. Sometime they connect. I like was couple months ago, I, I got the Reserve from one pilot in Minnesota. I think Bridals was connected to the, it's, it's was Reserve and bridals was connected to the bridge between risers, you know, if, wait, what h handoff was connected to the, a bridge between risers if holy shit.
And I said, man who connected? He said, it's my instructor. I said, what is his name? Give me please his name. I want to talk with him. Of course he, he, he didn't. But you know, I said, man, it's very, I I make a pictures and I post it on Facebook just to like share this information how it was on the, on the Reserve, you know, if you drove a Reserve and connected to your bridge between risers and the ugo, it'll not open if it's, so it's like wine will go around the handles around like it'll not open for
Speaker 1 (23m 23s): Sure. Holy cow.
Speaker 2 (23m 24s): Geez. It, it's just one of the last example. But so other small pro issues is like all the time they, the second mistake people when I send it, when I pack the Reserve, I left the oops on the internal container just a little bit. Just like two, three centimeters maybe maximum. I, I saw the Reserve when send me for a packing it like 20 centimeters, you know, no
Speaker 1 (23m 50s): Wait a
Speaker 2 (23m 50s): Whoop inside the, the final whoop inside the container when you throw, you will have the big loop sticking out if yes, if it's not installed properly, it's your creative delay for sure. And plus this whoop can hook some other ones and walk. So
Speaker 1 (24m 7s): You need it, you need that loop to be short.
Speaker 2 (24m 8s): Yeah. The shorter the better. You mean it's kind of not, not super short because when you throw, you can leave this inside the, your harnesses, but you need a little bit, just two, three centimeters maxim.
Speaker 1 (24m 19s): Okay.
Speaker 2 (24m 20s): Because, and also during the rep packing, I'm always at several other technique, which I found from my experience from my Skydiving and repacking add special tricks, which is help open Reserve faster. Like for example, I make a whoop inside the inside the Reserve just to, when you Reserve get the air a little bit, you if wines just together, they give you like, like half second, you know the way, because for us every second it's count, right?
We have to be like, and I made this like more and more efficient to open it more faster. I
Speaker 1 (25m 5s): Well can you explain that in, in a way that, that
Speaker 2 (25m 9s): Audience, it's, it better
Speaker 1 (25m 9s): Something we need to put
Speaker 2 (25m 11s): Show notes. Yeah, ill send you pictures. Maybe it's step by step out and you can share it. It, because like sometimes it's hard to explain what does mean, but you have to show the step by step. It's, it's helped the people to see how, how, how much different for the each like for the opening.
Speaker 1 (25m 29s): Okay, well the, we'll we'll put, we'll put that in the show notes so everybody can check that out. The, what are you seeing in different deployment times between the various reserves? Any, some, I mean, because some matters if it's a little bit, you know, I, I had a Reserve throw really, really low here training for the last X outs and it was a steerable square and boy it came out fast. It was, it was quite nice. It was lucky that it did cuz I threw really low.
I was basically on the ground.
Speaker 2 (26m 3s): And my question, doesn't the terrible Reserve help you
Speaker 1 (26m 7s): Steer? Oh no, no. In that case, not at all. No. It, it would've been impossible. I I I'm just saying that's what I threw and it it, but it, what I was impressed by was that it, it it it it opened very fast, which I needed it to. I was, yeah, I was, it was not good. And so I was very thankful that it opened really fast. I'm just wondering if you've seen much difference between the octagon or a, or a or round or a square or
Speaker 2 (26m 34s): Technically it doesn't matter much. It's only does is how fresh your pocket because it's like, because your fabric compress sit in the container, right? And like for 12 months at least you can imagine, right? If you compress the, like your peel, if you sleep on the peel and you compress it with the small and small and to back to the same size, you need time. This is what we are losing during the tro Reserve, right? This is time. And if it's fresh repacking, it's opening faster.
Everyone know about Yeah, but people lazy to think about because it's like, oh, I probably will not use it, you know, but you never know, right?
Speaker 1 (27m 13s): That's a bad, that's
Speaker 2 (27m 14s): A bad, it's a lot of conversation. Oh, I for example, you repack my Reserve years ago, but I didn't fly. I will not repack this season. I said, listen, it doesn't matter it sit in the small container. It if doesn't matter if you use it or you don't, you still, you have to repack it. It give you like more chance to open, I mean faster
Speaker 1 (27m 34s): And, and Andrey not, not to promote laziness w whatsoever, but you know, when I watch your videos of repacking, you're gonna get it way better than I can just because you're doing it over and over and over again. I have been told that, you know, the perfect little folds and really getting it perfect is not really that important. True or false.
Speaker 2 (27m 55s): Yeah, it's not important. It's can to be done by man. But the more important it keep all wines straight, this is with which creative a issue. If your wine is messed up, it can be open, not symmetrical, it's one problem, but another is can grab another wines and make nut or something like that. It's like possibility. But this is why for the new pilots, I, I am not recommended to buy like steerable Reserve or like al type or like square ster Reserve.
You don't need it. This complicity. It's good to have, if you like for example, you and me with like, we have two Reserve in the heart, right? And we have a choice which one. Like for example, my main Reserve is square and my steroid result is my backup. My just in case. Because if you have altitude, you can choose your steerable Reserve and kill your glider because without, if you don't disabled your, it doesn't matter which Reserve you have, it doesn't help you much.
Your gu track you, it like even sometimes creates more issue, more problem.
Speaker 1 (29m 3s): Yeah.
Speaker 2 (29m 4s): And yeah, this is why U iq, the wall altitude, I will throw my square Reserve because it's less complicity and it'll be guaranteed to open faster than terrible.
Speaker 1 (29m 16s): I, I, I think that's important. I, I threw in my Reserve a steerable down in Columbia, few years back in just a, a day right before a comp. And I, I had to wait quite a while to throw it because I was trying to drift over a little tiny field and I thought, man, if I could throw this and then stick it into that field with my steerable, that'd be really sexy. And I, I ended up landing in the field, but the steerable was a joke. I I I did not realize how long it takes to make all that happen.
You know, by the time I had disabled my glider and had it all in my lap, I was on the ground. Exactly. And I luckily the wind was in a, you know, i, I landed in the little field and packed that Reserve up and relaunched and flew back to home because I had the other Reserve. And so it was, it was kind of brilliant how it all worked out. But I that I had heard this, you know, that it takes a long time to, to activate the steering, you know, side of things when you have a steerable. But it really takes a long time. It it, it does. Yeah. It's quite a while.
So I have the same thing. I fly with a steerable. I actually fly with my steerable on my primary hand and I fly. So maybe I should reverse that. That's interesting. You fly it the other way around. But the, you know, I can, I'm the same way now I would think about it, I would choose, you know, instantly I go right hand,
Speaker 2 (30m 35s): Not instantly,
Speaker 1 (30m 36s): I go left hand. Yeah, yeah. Okay. Yeah. Interesting. You, I don't wanna skip something you said people put it in backwards or upside down lines. Oh, talk about that.
Speaker 2 (30m 47s): It's very common mistakes because if I think the guys from England, they made very nice video with the testing they Yeah. Matt Wilkes. Yeah. It's like they, they explain very clear, you know, if you throw your Reserve with two motion front and back your align on your hands and it's stuck. You know it's the same when you throw a Reserve and this is why most of the harness now they sell on container internal container because they market like a advanced, they always have the marker where face on the container should be Matt face on the harness.
Right? They like two dots. They have to map and this is why Good idea because otherwise people flip line up and give you rest like slippery, right? You put the wisdom more like harder to, to troover and plus
Speaker 1 (31m 43s): You. Yeah. So lines down, it
Speaker 2 (31m 44s): Winds down and all, not everything should be on the bottom of the harness. And because nothing should be on the way. Sometimes people just put the all wine all nuts on the, on the top of the Reserve when you throw you, you throw out for the harness with all nuts, with everything on the top of the container. This is how creative the issue.
Speaker 1 (32m 6s): Okay. And, and I think it's really important, the other thing you said, because when I learned how to para glide, you pull it forward and you huck it back and that's totally changed now. Yeah. That's not correct. And and I think a lot of people still have that in their, in their minds
Speaker 2 (32m 22s): And it's, and they have to process.
Speaker 1 (32m 23s): Cause it's this, you know, you, you have to, you have this thing where you're pulling it out and then you're hucking it, but it's just one fluid motion isn't it? Exactly. You grab
Speaker 2 (32m 30s): And huck it. Exactly. And you have to practice on your own harness because like for example, one harness has the like container with like 40, 25 degree flip. Like for example, W Valley has it and you have, and you throw just on the back sometimes it doesn't help, you know, because like special for tiny girls, they don't have muscles on the, like on the right hand for example, right. They have to fall on the technique, you know, like how they recommend it.
Exactly. Like in, in practice you have to practice as on harness has some with the front mount container has three pins. It's created some delay with the opening what I saw. But you have to practice, you have to be with your muscles for, for this. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (33m 18s): I, we were just recording a show again, this one hasn't out yet, but I had Nick Reese and Russ Ogden on the show yesterday and we were just talking about spring tuneup things and we, we got into reserves and we were talking about auto rotation, which Russ hates that term auto rotation because there's nothing auto about it. Y you have done this. Yep. This is manual rotation. It's your fault you've gotten into the auto rotation and you can get yourself out of it. You know, it's not an automatic throw, it's get out of the auto rotation.
But if you have to throw, obviously if there's doubt you have to throw and what he was talking about, what they're finding is if you're in that kind of situation where there's a potentially a lot of G-force when you're, and I, I'd be interested to get your thoughts on this cuz I had never heard this, this sounds really scary, but he was talking about how important it is to have that reflex of where the handle is. You do it every time you leave the hill down, you know, you follow this and Dio Deli talks about this all the time.
Just that you're, that needs to be totally automatic where that handle is because if you're in a cascading situation, you may not be in a situation where you can look a or he was talking about that you're in, if you're in really heavy G-force situation, he said people h hands can go down and if you miss the handle, your hand gets buried down and the G-force holds it so hard that you don't have the strength to get back to your handle. And that, that is really spooky.
Have you heard of
Speaker 2 (34m 55s): This? Yes, I do. And also another issue, it can be done too. Like if you right hand and you Reserve from your hand side with the rotation, you like your hands can be worked by riser. Right? Okay. And you cannot pull your Right, right hands down.
Speaker 1 (35m 11s): Get your hand out.
Speaker 2 (35m 12s): Yeah. In this case you have to use it to your left hands. This is why pilot who have frontal like a backup container, which is good idea because you can reach the handles or left or right hands under your frontal, right on your front mount container. Which, which helps all white on the advanced cards. You can access for the both Reserve from the left and from the right side as well. It's, it's helped,
Speaker 1 (35m 42s): You know, I was just thinking about this when I threw my Reserve, I was on light kit, you know, I was bi I was doing a biby exhibition, I was doing a bunch of training and I was very heavy and I was also on my light kit. So I had, you know, I had oxygen and all my camping stuff and it was a front mount and I'm trying to visualize, I think I just grabbed it and hucked it. But are you supposed to go around the riser and huck it from the outside or can you just
Speaker 2 (36m 6s): Go right straight and usually it should be go around the riser because if you throw from here, you, you will go through the, through your risers. Right through the
Speaker 1 (36m 14s): Lines. Yeah, through
Speaker 2 (36m 14s): The lines. Through your, like inside you have to throw, go out of the horizon.
Speaker 1 (36m 19s): I must have done that because I had a clean deployment. But I was just think I, I remember thinking about that a lot when I got my front mount. It was, you know, something we're kind of unfamiliar with. We don't think about too much. You your, your point that you've gotta practice this stuff. This is, this is an interesting thing because these days, as you, as you start to get better in this sport, we start flying a lot of different gear, don't we? We have our bivy kit, we have our hike and fly kit. We have our cross country kit, we have our racing kit, we have our acro kit. I mean I have five different harnesses. 86.
And this is, you know, when I, I had an issue training acro over the desert, switching back to my acro gear that I've talked about many times in the show. It was hysterical if it wasn't so dangerous. But that, that muscle memory wasn't there with the acro harness. I hadn't been flying, I've been flying my hike and fly kit, which only has one Reserve. My first Reserve wasn't attached through it. Whoa, my gosh. Yeah, look at that. And so, but I, I, I briefly for the very briefest time, forgot that I had a second Reserve so that wasting a second or two meant I hit the ground without the second one deploying.
I, I threw the second one. But I, but that, you know, I saw it roll out and then I hit the ground and luckily it was okay. I had enough of my wing flying over my head and it was in parachute and not, you know, resurging or something or restarting. So there was a lot of things there that went really my way. But that muscle memory wasn't there with the acro kit. And it was, it was, it could have been lethal.
Speaker 2 (37m 52s): Yeah, exactly. You have to practice this ma you have to know your gear for sure. Especially you have se several kits like you said. And I have two, I have one white one and I have competition one and, and I, I like white one because in New England we have to hike to the mountain almost every time. We don't have option with gondola or with the lift. Cause it's not available in our area. But still we, we have to hike. This is why I don't want to hike with my competition gear.
Speaker 1 (38m 24s): So how often, you said, you said the reserves definitely open faster if they've been freshly packed and then they get, Russ was even talking about that they get kind of a, a static energy. Correct. When they're, when what is that, is that static energy? Is that right? Yeah,
Speaker 2 (38m 39s): Mechanical. Yeah. Like special new fabric. They're synthetic now. They live can like, can live now for 15, 20 years. They, the old Reserve, they stay for 10 years only cause they use a different type of fabric now the new one, and of course this is the NY one or some other type of fabric. The synthetic, when you, I mean the created some electrical static, right? And when you, when I refresh the Reserve, my, my, my usual pro process is open Reserve give a brief like for 1224 hours, you know, just to be, because fabric has a memory.
You have to release this and pack in a little bit different shape because if you found the same shape, it can after couple of freezer, couple of years, it's will be, can create some even fabric is so soft. It's still, when you bend it in the same place several times it can be place where will damage will cause the damage. You know, it's, it's possibility. It's not like we'll be like hundred percent, but it's still, it will be stress point for the, for the Reserve.
Speaker 1 (39m 49s): So, so it sounds like regardless of the hours you're flying or your currency or anything kind of thing, you know the minimum is once a year or is that not even enough?
Speaker 2 (39m 57s): I, in my, when I was on national team, we pack every month.
Speaker 1 (40m 2s): Every
Speaker 2 (40m 2s): Month, every month.
Speaker 1 (40m 4s): No, but that's Skydiving. What would sky what
Speaker 2 (40m 6s): Would you do para would you recommend? I would recommend it at least every six months.
Speaker 1 (40m 11s): Every six months. Regardless if you're flying the kid or
Speaker 2 (40m 13s): Not. Yeah, exactly. It's,
Speaker 1 (40m 15s): That doesn't matter really.
Speaker 2 (40m 17s): Yeah. But you know, still it's fresh packing. It's give you, and plus when you hiking up and fly, you sit on the harness, your Reserve, it's sit inside the harness as well and make some like kind of f fo fall in the shape of the harness. You know, it, it can change configuration inside. It's not big deal. But still it's can be an issue for, for open.
Speaker 1 (40m 43s): Yeah. I I I wonder how much resistance there is to this. It, it's, it's interesting isn't it? The, the what we, what we're willing to spend money on in the sport and where we're willing to shave money just in, in some ways makes no sense whatsoever. You know, it's a Reserve it's a pretty important piece of your kid.
Speaker 2 (41m 0s): Exactly.
Speaker 1 (41m 1s): You know, it's like flying without an inReach, it just doesn't make a lot of sense.
Speaker 2 (41m 4s): Correct. And people still, oh, I don't need it square Reserve expensive. I will buy the round one. But round has some like, kind of not stable wedding. It can, I mean it's kind of sold away and all design already why you have to buy all design because it's cheaper. You own, like you buy the cheap insurance for yourself.
Speaker 1 (41m 22s): Yeah. That's
Speaker 2 (41m 22s): Not where we save money for. Exactly. You save a hundred bucks, but for what, you know, you've broken an ankle. Exactly. You'll pay more weight, you know, but it's no point.
Speaker 1 (41m 30s): You know, I, I like, I think I'm sure many people who listen, who are listening today, you know, I had this thing, well I'll never have to throw my Reserve. And for years and I was flying in Sun Valley and really had, you know, strong air and a lot of hours and a lot of comps and the ex Alps and the whole thing. And never, never, never, never, never. You know, I must be a really good pilot and then, you know, I've thrown three times now in combat and, you know, and, and not, in other words, not over the water, not training acro.
I've, I've done several of those now too. But those are, you know, these were in situations where I needed my Reserve and I can tell you that, you know, even on a Reserve that is, you know, 20% over the weight range, all the things that they recommend, you can come down pretty darn fast. Yes. And depending on the terrain you're coming into, you know, flat, rocky cement top of a roof versus a nice slope with grass like you have in the Alps. You know, it's, it's really variable and, and it's, it's always been surprising to me how fast you come down.
It's, it's whoop you're on the ground and it's you. I think, I think having that,
Speaker 2 (42m 46s): This is why yeah, you have to add extra, at least 10 q on the top of your takeoff weight. Even your glr fly next to you. Right. It, you cannot count your glr, for example, like five Q for example. But still if you fly in Utah, for example, on 14,000, right? On 12,000, you need a bigger Reserve because Yeah. Cause the hairs thin. Exactly, exactly. You need bigger Reserve. I would say I will recommend it at at least 10 ki on the top of the takeoff weight.
1520 is the be is the best. But yeah, it's, it's like a recommendation. But of course people working for the cheaper option sometimes, you know, oh, I, I have hundred takeoff, I will buy the hundred Reserve for the hundred kilograms in the top. You know?
Speaker 1 (43m 33s): And, and I think what you're talking too, the, the pendulum effect, whatever they call that under the round, I think that or down planing. I, I think these kind of things can really impact us, right? I mean if you, you you, you happen to have that timing wrong, which you don't have any control over when you're gonna hit the ground, when you're under Reserve. Really is that could be the difference between, you know, a walk away and a, and a trip to the ankle doctor.
Speaker 2 (44m 1s): Exactly. Yeah, definitely. It'll, and if you throw Reserve high enough, you have time for for fix it right. To go left and right moving. If you owe, you don't have time, you don't have choice. You throw, you throw. This is why I always recommended to my student, if you before true Reserve, just check your altitude. Sometimes people are crazy and don't worry about the altitude, but check your altitude first. If you have enough altitude, okay, you have more chance for why and be without any issue to any, if you don't have you just throw, just throw.
Don't think.
Speaker 1 (44m 40s): Yeah, I, I would postulate too that when people don't have quite a lot, and I mean, you know, way more than one s i v training that the, the, the fatal accidents I have seen and I've seen quite a few have been, I have never seen anything bad happen under canopy. I mean, in other words, under Reserve, I have all the, all the really bad stuff I have seen not launching and landing, I'm talking about in the air have been just not throwing, you know, people going all the way to the deck without, without throwing.
And I would postulate that's because they're trying to fix it and they've lost track of where they are in the sky. They're not, they're not checking the
Speaker 2 (45m 27s): Ground. Exactly. This is why when I throw my Reserve and Florida during the camp for on Paraia, I had frontal on 4,500. Right. And my weather was like, had the very like frontal co-ops and we had the free fall, it was like task was canceled because the strong wind and something happened with the, with the wind and thermal link. I was in the sink very, a big sink area.
Andrey cannot open it. I saw my guder, I remember Guder on the front of me and we, like, he just tried to open, but not enough air. I don't know what happened. But we three, four wow. For maybe five, 400 meters. We three four. I check, I checked my altitude. My three four was like 12 meters per second. 10, 12, 12. Wow. And, and okay. And from in just my sky background show up or say, okay, my altitude two, three, okay. I'm through Reserve, I saw the trees, it's time to open it.
And it was open exactly how the sky diamond now the way just boom. And my harness was broke and like, because because three four open Paraguay Reserve, it's kind of little bit tail, right? Yeah. It's like fast opening for sure. And this is
Speaker 1 (46m 47s): Because you don't, because you don't have the little square thing when this guy, you don't have that little thing that kind of slowly open
Speaker 2 (46m 52s): No, it's like immediately open shock. It's shock. It's open because this is why my harness was damaged after this opening. Wow. It's opened very fast. But it's remind me like my Skydiving, you know, Skydiving is been, I have, of course I have two opening like cutaway, real cutaway in Skydiving and other testing just, it's not count, but in real one it was exactly the same. You have to like just three, four and open. Throw your Reserve. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (47m 21s): So let me, let me see if I can summarize real quickly where we're at so far. We, we gotta fly with a hook knife. We gotta fly with freshly packed reserves. You know, ideally no more than six months we wanna repack 'em. We wanna fly with two reserves whenever possible. It's nice to have that, that backup. There's some, some interesting data on that. But we wanna fly with newer reserves, you know, with the new materials and new newer designs, square octagon rather than around.
We don't want to fly Reserve that's more than 10 years old and we wanna, we wanna make sure it's packed correctly. We wanna have the lines down. That's super important. We want to have the handle correct correctly attached to the bag. We want to have muscle memory for where the Reserve is and the harness that we're currently flying. We want to make that super redundant that we do it all the time and it's just, we, we can find it with either hand in various situations.
And that just comes from practice. That's one of the things I do every time I take off. I just take off once I'm away from the hill and I'm, I'm safe, I grab both toggles and I just do it. Exactly. Even on comp days, I just make that kind of part of my, it's almost like my pre-flight check, even though I'm in the air. Are we missing anything?
Speaker 2 (48m 44s): Looks like everything Yeah. In Rich, how you said you have to like have your position and insurance, right? Global rescue insurance actually this. Exactly, exactly. It's, it's next down Global Rescue head headquarters. It's Lebanon and New Hampshire. It's next down. When I flew was was the record, you know, from it's next down in the same Yeah,
Speaker 1 (49m 6s): We're gonna talk about your record here in a sec. Yeah, yeah. I was just actually on the phone with those guys. You know, they're, they're our title sponsor of the X Red Rocks. And so I was initially worked with them with my boat operations and you know, we had a guy get a, a really bad staff infection on the boat in Papua New Guinea after a reef cut and they evacuated them out of there, out of there, which was a big job getting someone out of the very remote part of Papua New Guinea, getting him home to Europe. But, so I, I've been a fan of theirs for a long time.
But like you said, it's, again, this is one of these places where we should spend a little bit of money
Speaker 2 (49m 42s): For sure.
Speaker 1 (49m 42s): You know, it's, you know, given what we do and, and given the, given the odds and the the chances and all those kind of things, it's, you know, it's, it's, it's not inevitable for sure, but it can certainly happen.
Speaker 2 (49m 54s): Yes, for sure. You shouldn't as long as tell me about
Speaker 1 (49m 56s): Your record. That sounded amazing. You just had a, did this just happen?
Speaker 2 (50m 2s): Which records are you talking about?
Speaker 1 (50m 3s): No, well no, you flew to the beach.
Speaker 2 (50m 5s): Oh, for the beach? Yeah. It was done couple weeks ago in New England. Wow. It's, is this the first flight from para because they used to fly only hang rider to the beach because we always fight with the breeze from the ocean. And even hang rider cannot fight, fight through the, this bri breeze from the ocean because wind from the ocean so strong, you cannot reach it.
Speaker 1 (50m 31s): You've got a strong sea breeze there are you Sea
Speaker 2 (50m 32s): New Hampshire sea breeze. Yeah, we, we fly from Vermont and like, it's almost a hundred mile from the beach and it was like, I was not expected, let's say this way. We just, that
Speaker 1 (50m 45s): Wasn't the plan? No,
Speaker 2 (50m 46s): It was not the plan. Well we just, I just had some feeling in my head. I just, I just found my intuition. It's like hard to Were
Speaker 1 (50m 58s): You with anybody?
Speaker 2 (50m 59s): Yeah, I was with my friend Max Kura. I just dreamed his guider and he was so happy. I mean, for the first, he was a little bit like kinda scared because at first fight Dream Gladder, he never, he cried only but didn't fight and he, after a while he was, wow, it's so nice Gladder now, you know. And we flew together in the team, fight the team fight. It's helps a lot, you know, especially with the Blue day, not so high Cloudbase. We just fall the wind and we had two airspace have to fly out.
I flew maybe a hundred meters from airspace board just to try because Wind was pushing us to the airspace twice and we fly out of, and it just competition helped me to push my bar faster and fly faster as much as possible. Just, okay, what were you flying? I flew climber two now with my wild gear and Boomer 12 on my competition gear.
Speaker 1 (51m 59s): The climber's a beautiful wind. It is. So you, so it was how far it was? A hundred miles.
Speaker 2 (52m 4s): It's 153 kilometers. It's almost a hundred miles.
Speaker 1 (52m 8s): Damn man. That so, I mean I, I can't visualize this cuz I've never flown, I mean, I've been to Vermont. I used to ski race out there back in a long, long time ago. I used to ski race out in Maine and Vermont, you know, for the Noam's and stuff. But the, you know, for many of the listeners flying in New England is something they've never even heard of. What, what, describe the terrain. What are the mountains like? It's, it's very tree. I would
Speaker 2 (52m 30s): Imagine. It's it's a lot of trees. It's not so high mountain. It's like we have a white mountain and Green mountain. Green mountain. Most of the Vermont and white mountain in New Hampshire area and new, it's New Hampshire has this Washington mountain. It's called one of the 10 places in the Earth, which works weather. It's why is the craziest? Well seriously, if you check the Google, if you Google, we, we,
Speaker 1 (52m 57s): I've seen all of Eduardo's training films on that mountain. Jesus.
Speaker 2 (53m 1s): It's just exactly for my like 12 years, 13 years experience. I flew once this mountain, we said, and for him too, because we cannot find the nice window. For what? For fight in this mountain. This is,
Speaker 1 (53m 15s): I had, I had a awesome sail plane pilot on the show way back when Kevin, he, I think he was talk is is Mount Washington? Is it set up wave? Yes. They, they fly in the wave. Oh man. Wow. Crazy. I was, it's
Speaker 2 (53m 30s): Windy topo landing in this area, but it was not good weather. And I went on the bottom after 70 K or so, you know, like it's not much wind area around for sure. It's like one fly to the trees, you know, like Yeah. It's like sometimes you have 50 by 50 meters and you have to be wacky to plant on this.
Speaker 1 (53m 49s): Yeah. Wow. I've seen, I've seen some of Donna's photos flying in the, in northeast. And you look at it looks like Finland. I mean there's lakes.
Speaker 2 (53m 58s): Exactly.
Speaker 1 (53m 58s): Exactly. Everywhere. There's water everywhere. I mean I, when I, when I did the podcast with Joanna, she showed me, you know, the Finland, they call it the, the land of a thousand lakes or something, or a million lakes, 10,000 lakes. There's a lot of lakes. There's water everywhere. And, and I look at Donna's photos. It looks like that. Exactly.
Speaker 2 (54m 15s): Exactly,
Speaker 1 (54m 15s): Exactly. Water. Every, you, you think, well, how, how are the thermals happening here? It's,
Speaker 2 (54m 19s): Oh, this is why one of the element, what we flew two, two weeks ago, it's no leaves on the trees, you know, and this is why temic, the, the forest can re release the temec as well with the big difference temperature between night and day. This is like how created the nice temec like couple of weeks later he lives already on the trees and probably it's with the west active west punching.
Speaker 1 (54m 45s): Oh,
Speaker 2 (54m 45s): Okay. But still, we still, we still have some hills and still some small mountain. But we can fly around. Like for example, my New Hampshire record, I took off from 250 feet mount. It's like training hills.
Speaker 1 (55m 2s): Yeah. That's some UK stuff there, man. I mean that's, that, that's a big hill for the uk. When I, when I went over there and watched those guys, I thought, wait a minute, you're going XC from here. This is a tiny little mole hill. You know, I, you know, Mount Monroe where we have the, the wide open that's 5,000 feet to the the valley.
Speaker 2 (55m 19s): I know I've been there. I know to say
Speaker 1 (55m 20s): You've got time to work at
Speaker 2 (55m 21s): It. Exactly.
Speaker 1 (55m 24s): 250 feet. How far did you fly?
Speaker 2 (55m 26s): 80 kilometers.
Speaker 1 (55m 28s): Wow.
Speaker 2 (55m 28s): That's, that's exciting. And I was practiced my puma June rider. I was take off and top landing, take off at top point. Just practice my, like built my, my, my experience. And I didn't have this time valid. I don't have anything with me. I just, with with the short jacket and I, with nothing I don't have. And I just find a nice term. You can just drift and drift and drift. And I say, okay, I can go. And I, and I left to, and I call my guys and I'm like, Hey guys, can you drive my car? I don't have anything with me.
Speaker 1 (56m 0s): Oh, I love the unplanned stuff. That's special. That's really neat. And then you start thinking, I mean, don't you, then you start thinking, how often could that work? You know, what, what, what was special about that day? Maybe not that much. You know, you might be able to go back there and repeat that over and over again. I mean that's what, it's what the, the British pilots talk about on their little hills, you know, that they, once they discover that works, it works. They, they can get away.
Speaker 2 (56m 24s): It is you just, I mean you have to have like your point always behind your, inside your head. You have to like thinking, okay, if I took off and I found an observation, you can see the bird. Yeah. If you see the birds start whamming, okay, join them. Yeah. This is key. Go. Even even your super roll, this is your key. Yeah. Yeah. But, and of course you have to feel the air, you know, if you feel like something leafy, you have to go forward and just try to play with it. Of course we don't have much choice.
If it's a lot of trees behind you, just be very careful and confidence if you, if you grab this, you hold it. This is why from New England, they're very patient usually. Mm. Because you play with the small stuff and you stay forever, you know, they'll stay. This is why my result on the competition not so good because I am on the goal, but I am like in the end of the list because I'm always walk to the top and push the bar after because it's, I change for you.
Speaker 1 (57m 25s): You take, you take your time, you get to the top.
Speaker 2 (57m 27s): Exactly. I mean, Bianca told me, you have to go, you have to push the bar. I said, yeah, yes. But when you turn me just walking with it and I'm like, you like, you're like, you are scared to leave it because you're like in, if you leave the, you're on the ground.
Speaker 1 (57m 43s): Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, it's a, it's a different approach. I mean, and I think that's why the British pilots are so good when it's light, you know, they're very, very good when it's, when it's, the cores aren't gathered and everything's kind of mixed up and it's just super soft and you have to drift forever and you have to be very patient. And that can be, that's not a skill that those of us that live on the west side of the, of the continent are very good at because it's so strong. You know, a two meter climb is something you have to leave.
Speaker 2 (58m 13s): This is to meter for us, it's like, oh, it's good climate, let's do it. You know? Yeah.
Speaker 1 (58m 17s): For you, that's a boomer.
Speaker 2 (58m 19s): Exactly. I'm serious. It's not a joke, it's, it's reality.
Speaker 1 (58m 22s): No, I know. It's a, it's a very different kind of approach and we need to have experience at, at all of 'em. Especially when you start competing.
Speaker 2 (58m 29s): Welcome to New England.
Speaker 1 (58m 30s): You're not gonna always fly via,
Speaker 2 (58m 32s): Welcome to New England. We can't show you how you have this.
Speaker 1 (58m 34s): Yes, I need to, I need to come out. I, I, I love all you guys. I need to come out there and I know it's a, it's an aspiring community. You guys are, you guys are tight and doing a lot of stuff together. Two things I wanna talk about before we close things up. Trimming and, and Bianca, you, I didn't know you were part of her kind of pre dolomites team and that that ended unfortunately, I think her, her first day at the comp or maybe her first flight. It was quite an unfortunate thing there. But I, I'd love to get your perspective on that.
And then also just trimming, taking the one,
Speaker 2 (59m 8s): Yeah, the trimming is more important. It's one of the important stuff for the competition guider and for recreation guiders as well, because it kind of, it's safety, you know, if you, like I had the go a couple weeks ago, even it's big gui, but one wine was longer than other on 76 millimeters. Geez, it's B it's B wines. It was different. And I saw it was made professionally, but probably a pirate. Choose the wrong link of the, of the white.
It's 76 millimeters different. Say how you survive on this glider. I don't know. I just, it's, that's crazy. And inspection is also part of the safety of the gliders because this day people just new special for new pilot. They're buying new gliders and most of the white gear, which they are not ready for this or for the white gear, and they damage the guider very quicker. Yeah. It's, it's good to have, but not for the new pilot. And it's kind of strange for our old pilot who like had some experience, he just realized like the new guider is good.
If you have, you have to hike with the gear and like your, how you said the like why it said, right. But dreaming is one of the safety issue for the old guard. You have to check. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (1h 0m 30s): I've talked about this a lot on the show, so I won't, I don't want to totally hammer it, but I mean, I think we need to be really cognizant of what we're giving up when we go with the light gear. You know, a it's very expensive and it wears out really fast, you know, so there's a, there's the a cost side of it that I think a lot of people don't, don't really process. But there's also, you know, the, they're, these are more fragile in every way. They, you know, they, the lines stretch easier. The, the fabric deteriorates faster. Your lightweight harness is not going to have the protection, even if it's Ian certified.
It doesn't have the passive protection that we're used to. We don't have a seat board, so we don't have the authority with the wing. So there's many things that come down to, you know, typically we're flying with one Reserve, not two. So there, there's lots of things that is celebrated. I'm, I'm so excited that it exists and that there's been this huge push because it allows us to attack the sport in, in really wonderful ways and, and walk up the hill without my comp kit, which is lovely, but it's, we are giving something up, you know, we're not flying our Cadillacs anymore.
Speaker 2 (1h 1m 38s): Yes, for sure. White gear. And it's, it's, you're absolutely right. The white gear is kinda died very quicker compared with the regular.
Speaker 1 (1h 1m 50s): Yeah. And it also, it, it just also behaves differently. You know, the, the light gliders, are they, they collapse differently. They they are more work.
Speaker 2 (1h 2m 0s): Exactly. I would
Speaker 1 (1h 2m 1s): Say for sure across the board. You know, they're, they're not the same and they're, it's not the same e B as an e N B and it's e N C and e n c. They're different. Yes.
Speaker 2 (1h 2m 10s): Different. Yes. I, I can compare. I flew leopard and I flew puma. The puma is white version of leopard. Exactly the same tractor, exactly the same wine, everything the same different fabric and different izer and few differently. Leopard can fly longer, especially for, you need to recognize white Hume is kind of copied the same. But of course white fabric cannot hold so much pressure and can like by a little bit differently. But the good of this for the, for puma, it's with the strong lift, it can softer on the control much softer because like with the leopard can kick you so strong cause it art regular fabric, right?
The puma can allow you to play little bit softer. This is why pum is female and leopard is male, you know, it's like kinda different, you know?
Speaker 1 (1h 3m 3s): Right,
Speaker 2 (1h 3m 3s): Right. Different animal. Interesting.
Speaker 1 (1h 3m 5s): Yeah, I I think that the, before we leave trimming it, it seems like at the competition end of things too, the, a lot of the really top pilots are trimming their gliders. Every comp, you know, it's something that they're really staying on top of. And, and I can say in my own experience, it really makes a difference.
Speaker 2 (1h 3m 24s): It is. And why wine stretch you cannot change it. Wine will strain depends how much pressure you put on on the wine. You know, if you spiral down, you like one side extend one faster than another side for example. Or you, if you store your quads differently, you have to check because all wines are sensitive now. Yeah, for sure. And you put the speed bar, you change your angle of attack all the time and your a is like stretch and up a little.
You cannot avoid it.
Speaker 1 (1h 3m 57s): And I wanted to talk about the, the, the situation with b with Bianca. And I should have her on the show, I actually to talk about this, but I I never really found what happened. She was, she was, you guys, you guys were over there training before? Yeah,
Speaker 2 (1h 4m 9s): We, we were training for week before this camp and I don't know detail. I mean at least I don't, I was not there. I cannot say exactly what was happen, you know, and how you know it shit happen, you know, you cannot avoid it. Yeah. Shit
Speaker 1 (1h 4m 26s): Happened.
Speaker 2 (1h 4m 26s): Yeah. The practice had week before we, we had very nice week. We fly around Marada, we fly several mo several mountains. We have a nice route. And we were very excited about the camp, but
Speaker 1 (1h 4m 44s): It's a beautiful place. It
Speaker 2 (1h 4m 46s): Is, yeah. It's amazing. It's,
Speaker 1 (1h 4m 47s): I've been to the Dolomites many times and I've hardly ever flown them because I've always, we've always been completely shut down with the weather, you know, and the ops, the last couple times we've gone down to crone plots, which is, that's worked. But the, the proper dolomites, I've never flown in there.
Speaker 2 (1h 5m 1s): It's, it's great. Now Bianca and Duardo, they, they're running trip there next summer. They, they have the company now and they invite the customer for that.
Speaker 1 (1h 5m 10s): Oh, fantastic. Oh, I didn't know that. Yeah. Cool. Well let's finish here. What is your company so people know where to find you and, and what you're, what you're doing and what's your website? And
Speaker 2 (1h 5m 20s): Thanks man. My, my company is, I request para I, I run this company last five years and I do Reserve free parking and inspection, which is important part of the, our gear. And I do the inspection and repair any type of repair and was streaming now was winter. I went Toria and I was at FSA school where I took all this training about the streaming where so many details they like explained me so nicely and I was happy to visit after last winter and spent weeks with, that was great.
Where, where
Speaker 1 (1h 6m 1s): Is this? I didn't know there was a school for this.
Speaker 2 (1h 6m 4s): And after, it's not for this, it's like a school. They do the service and they just give me like certification of the stuff, what they do. And they train me for the exactly for the trim and small detail for the gliders. That's why, for the, for testing and for inspection. Gui
Speaker 1 (1h 6m 28s): Wicked. Well, Andrey, you'll send me all the stuff for the show notes. We're gonna, you're gonna send me some photos of you know, how to and how not to pack and that kind of thing. We'll put all those in the show notes for when we release it. But thank you very much for your time and sharing all this great knowledge and congratulations on your big flight and we'll see you in Shelan.
Speaker 2 (1h 6m 48s): Thank you man. I'm happy to talk about and see you soon.
Speaker 1 (1h 6m 53s): Thanks a lot.
Speaker 2 (1h 6m 53s): Cheers. Bye.
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