Episode 72- Greg Hamerton and FlyBubble, gear choice, bivvy, and the road to Mastery

Lift off…

Greg Hamerton is a South African pilot who started flying in 1992 and made the UK his home ten years ago to join the FlyBubble crew. You’ve probably seen his very professional videos on many aspects of flying and progression on their YouTube channel (and if you haven’t you should!). Greg is a former PWC pilot, participated in the X-Pyr in 2016, is passionate about vol biv and has a lot of great thoughts and advice for pilots at every level. We discuss gear and choices and how to not get sucked into what others are saying vs what’s right for you, how to get into vol biv and best practices, the difference and advantages and disadvantages of 2 vs 3 liners, why “flying slow” is a worthy chase, learning to develop intuition that’s not “intuitive”, comps and chasing the aesthetics rather than the result, quality vs numbers and distances, what makes a “champion” and mastery, how to find the winning line and so, so SO much more. THIS ONE IS AWESOME. ENJOY!

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Show Notes:

A bunch of useful links we mention in the show:

https://flybubble.com/ for flying resources, knowledge base and great gear. Pilots from the USA and Canada can order from us via info@flybubble.com (we are in the process of enabling our website to handle international orders). This probably won’t make sense for small items but for larger kit purchases, part exchange and personalized wing matching service we have a unique advantage.

https://www.youtube.com/flybubbleparagliding for instructional videos, wing reviews and freeflight movies

https://www.patreon.com/flybubble for behind the scenes and filming tips

https://www.facebook.com/Flybubble.Paragliding to keep in touch on social media

Videos mentioned in the interview

https://youtu.be/RHIj3TaTW2g I caught a cloud on my paraglider

https://youtu.be/o52Ldul4JLQ Paragliding Skills: Improve Your Ground Handling

Discussed in the episode:

Greg discusses his most memorable sufferfest in Africa
Vol biv- a cool approach
Greg discusses gear and why he flies a lower level wing
We discuss training, pilot ability, and why FlyBubble got out of instructing and are now focused on gear and the videos
Greg discusses why high level instruction is so hard to make a viable business and why pilots don’t pay for it
Using your speed bar correctly and learning to go against what’s intuitive
There is no magic pill- airtime, airtime, airtime
Self assessment- where are you, really
The difference between 2 liners and 3 liners when it comes to collapses
The difference between a standard weight wing and light weight wings and some heads-up
Bivvy practices- gear, training, weekend trips, how to get started, etc.
Groundhandling– best practices (watch his video!). Greg has thousands of hours of groundhandling.
Comps – the good, the bad and chasing the aesthetics instead of the result
Quality vs chasing distance and numbers
Attitude is everything
Bivvy kit
X-Pyr stories and the X-Pyr vs the X-Alps

Mentioned in this episode:

Matt Wilkes, Matt Henzi, Donizete Lemos, Ed Ewing, Hanness Papesh, Flyeo, FlyBubble, Tom Payne, Ben Abruzzo, Chrigel Maurer, Jon Pendry, Ferdinand Van Shelven, Paul Gushlbauer, Aaron Durogati