#278: Patagonia Convergence, Acro Mastery, and the Truth about SIV with Kris Holub

July 30, 2026 by Gavin McClurg

Kris Holub is one of the most versatile pilots in the American free-flight community — an accomplished acro competitor, XC pilot, and SIV/acro instructor who has spent the last four years running clinics out of Oludeniz, Turkey. Gavin sat down with Kris in person during a weather day at the US Nationals in Chelan this June to talk about his extraordinary winter season in Bariloche, Argentina, where he and his friend Marcos Rosenkjer explored one of the most underrated and unknown and seriously awesome XC destinations in the world — and capped it off with a 345km convergence flight into the Patagonian desert.

#253 Ask Me Anything with Karlis Jaunpetrovičs

August 21, 2025 by Gavin McClurg

We depart from the Red Bull X-Alps in this episode and dive into a whole bunch of questions that have come in this past year from our listeners. And instead of answering them on my own we return to Karlis Jaunpetrovičs, former test pilot for BGD and current head of his own instructional SIV, coaching, and guiding (as well as running competitions) company Flying Karlis. We cover a lot of very solid ground here, especially when we got into reserves.

#214, Galen Kirkpatrick and Creating New Lore

February 23, 2024 by Gavin McClurg

Galen Kirkpatrick rose from a beginner to the 2023 US National Paragliding Champion in seven years, becoming the first female champion. Her journey from fear of flying to the pinnacle of the sport involved intensive training, overcoming a significant fear, and a shift in mindset to prioritize fun and creativity. Her success has been a mix of personal bests and learning to apply flying lessons to life, marking a seminal moment for women in the sport and inspiring camaraderie and emotional safety among pilots.

#201- Calef Letorney and Community, Confidence, and Cloudwhispering

August 17, 2023 by Gavin McClurg

Calef Letorney was a professional paddler back in the early 2000’s who made the switch to flying and has never looked back. When you think of places to fly in the world you don’t often put the North East US on the list. There’s a lot of trees, cloudbase is low, weather if fickle. But that’s where Calef found himself after learning to fly in the Colorado Rockies and his desire to send meant the first thing that had to happen was to get good at flying, and it’s hard to get good without other good pilots to fly with, so he had to get others up to snuff as well. So Calef became an instructor, then an SIV instructor, then a guide…and the rest fell into place.

Episode 194- The Spring Tune up with Nick Greece and Russ Ogden

May 2, 2023 by Gavin McClurg

This week we dive into spring with the current World Champion and long-time Ozone test pilot Russ Ogden and multiple US National Champion Nick Greece. Year after year we see accidents in free flight spike in spring. Spicy conditions, rusty skills, new unfamiliar gear, heightened stoke, another year behind us, lack of confidence… we explore the many things that might have an impact on why we see the spike and what you can do to make sure you’re not in the data set.

Episode 166- Going Big and dealing with Setback with Serena Ronchi

March 3, 2022 by Gavin McClurg

season Serena won the female XContest and flew OVER 10,000 kilometers in a single season! She quit her job as a teacher and went on an 8 month sabbatical to fly and spent over 3 months in the Sertão of Brazil. Serena takes us back to her time in Brazil and learn about flying in a lot of wind, towing, figuring out the flats and having it all come together. Serena takes us through her journey to become a pilot, the addiction that set in, her dreams and hopes with flying and then the accident that brought it all to a sudden halt and the extraordinary and difficult road she’s undertaken to recover.

Episode 149- Dilan Benedeti and learning to deal with gravity

July 26, 2021 by Gavin McClurg

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.

Episode 133- Malin Lobb and Wing Control

December 5, 2020 by Gavin McClurg

Malin Lobb is the co-owner of Flyeo paragliding in Annecy with Fabien Blanco. He was one of the founders of the British Racing Academy, is a keen world cup comp pilot and an experienced SIV and paragliding instructor. In this information-packed episode that our editor called “One of the Best Episodes EVER!” we are given a TON of really solid advice on how to approach SIV; what to be thinking about when choosing a wing; the pitfalls of wing certification and relying on “passive safety” and a whole lot more!

Episode 118- Charles Cazaux and Focus

May 9, 2020 by Gavin McClurg

Charles Cazeaux began flying when he was 15 years old. Shortly after that he became the first person to enter the French juniors program that was created to build exceptional pilots who would represent the country on the world stage. Needless to say the program worked very well indeed for Charles! He’s been on the French team every year since 1998, he won the Superfinal in 2009, won the world championships in 2011, holds multiple world records and instructs SIV and cross country with Seiko Fukuoka for the Airlinks Academy.

Bonus Episode- Ken Hudonjorgensen and “Winguistics”

January 9, 2020 by Gavin McClurg

Learn the language of your wing and what it’s trying to tell you by the legendary instructor Ken Hudonjorgensen. This talk is aimed at lower hour pilots but I learned a ton and no doubt you will as well. Enjoy!