#212 The Most Important Flight with Marcus King

Marcus King has been flying pretty much full time since 1991. He spent many years with the early Ozone team and has been on the design team with Cross Country Magazine for ages. All those gear and wing reviews you see in the magazine (and a TON of the photos!) are compliments of Marcus. In this chat Marcus shares his background in paragliding, his work in the industry, the rise of the sports class competitions, his involvement in the Red Bull X-Alps, and his passion for flying in the French Alps. And then we switch to a very unfortunate totally benign day back in September when Marcus hit the ground hard. Marcus shares his experience of the accident, the rescue operation, and the injuries he sustained and of course the 20-20 hindsights that are always a part of the forensics of making mistakes.

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Episode 158- Kirsty Cameron and Stacking the Odds

Kirsty Cameron has been a member of the British team many times. She’s been flying high-end 2 line gliders for over 10 years and put a ton of energy and time into competition flying since she began flying in the late 90’s. This year with travel being difficult and her 4 year old son vying for more her time Kirsty decided to dedicate her flying time to chasing big distance at home in the UK. She nabbed a couple records this year (see below for the links) and has found a new, super fun outlet for getting her flying fix.

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Killing Complacency- Making sure the luck jar doesn’t run dry

And then I pounded. My second reserve didn’t have time to deploy, it was laid out right beside me in a unfolded line. I bounced a bit and thankfully the dirt was really soft. My body made a horrible thudding noise but I was certainly alive. I got up slowly and realized with some amazement that I seemed to be unhurt. I called Cody on the radio and said the same. “NO YOU AREN’T OK, that’s the adrenaline, you are definitely not ok, lay back down!” But I was in fact ok. Soreness would kick in as the adrenaline wore off, but I’d done nothing more than bruises. To both my ego and my body.

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