Aljaž Valič : 777 : Paragliding’s Slovenian Mavericks Redefining the EN B Class And Elevating Free Flight Performance

Anindya Singh: Honestly speaking, now you can fly 20 years. It's like monoclass. No need to change something because anyway, we all have the same. So it's about the pilot's skills, not about the material we fly. So development slowly stops.

Aninder: One question that I've been wanting to ask you guys for ages. Why did Spectra and Gambit get banned at one point of time by Civil? Old story. I

Anindya Singh: almost forget details, but this was one thing why the Gambit didn't break through. I think in the end we were kicked out because... And then you drift one thermal 20 kilometers like this. You come to 6000 meters and then the next 30-40 kilometers no thermal, just light. And then again from zero up. So it's really in some cases really radical. In every industry, giants loom large. The household names that dominate the landscape. But every once in a while, someone comes along who defies the

Aninder: odds. Not a corporation, not a team full of professionals, just one man army. Or in this case, two. Fueled with passion, grit, and an unshakable vision to carve their own path. And paragliding is no exception. So today, we are diving deep into the story of Wallich Brothers, two innovators from Slovenia, a country better known for alpine lakes and fairytale forests rather than cutting-edge aerospace designs. But after years of honing their craft with industry titans, they finally took a leap of faith to build something entirely on their own. Brand 777 that started redefining on what's possible in paragliding. And this episode isn't just about wings and the wind. It's about what it takes to

thrive as an underdog in a sport where innovation is expensive, competition is fierce, and margin for error, well, let's just say that gravity doesn't negotiate, right? So we find out the answer to the question that how do you turn setbacks into breakthroughs when the going gets tough, and what keeps you soaring in such a scenario? So join me for an intimate conversation with Aliaz Valic, the elder of the two, and also the co-founder of 777, where we unlock the brand's DNA from their design philosophy to raw, unfiltered struggles behind their triumphs. Over the next 90 minutes, you'll discover a side of Aliaz that probably his closest friends might not even know. So in short, this is

your backstage pass to resilience, innovation, and the art of flying against the wind. Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls and everyone along with them, welcome back to Paragliding Atlas. I'm your host Anindya Singh and this is your weekly dose of awesomeness coming back to you as planned. So without further ado, let's dive right in and I hope you like it.

Alias Malik, what an absolute honor to finally have you on Paragliding Atlas, man. How are you doing today? I'm well, yeah. I'm also glad to have

Anindya Singh: meeting with you and to share my thoughts with you and the people listening. That's so cute to say. Alias, let's dive right in and start

Aninder: with the name of the brand that you are running. Alias, a lot of people in the audience have heard the name 007 a number of times in their life, but 777 seems to have its own uniqueness. So what is the essence behind the name 777? it's quite old story about this but generally was meaning like

Anindya Singh: 777 or 777 is also some synonym for the luck so one of our partners which we established a company together at start He had this view in his mind and we take it and it was going nice to the ears. And we said, sometimes also you need luck in paragliding, but we never really count on it. But we said, why not? And we take this name. So it's not really some... big background about this behind but just more or less like it was nice to hear and also this lack factor sometimes we need all i think in life so shortly about seven seven is just this yeah take us back in time alias how

did this whole idea of starting your own brand begin and what were the origins of triple seven what did the early days of triple seven look like

Yeah, we started paragliding with my brother. We did a competition before we established our brand. And in the competition scene, we also cooperated with different brands before we started our own brand, Triple Seven. So in the beginning, we started with, I don't know, a jean company. My brother worked with Niviuk. Then we joined together. We started to work with Niviuk in competition gliders. competition harnesses at times. And then after 10 years of competing World Cup and World Championship all around the world, we decided that maybe it's time to a little more establish at home and maybe start some own company. That was the idea. We have quite deep background already with other

brands in establishing production in China, many different production facilities. So we have all background what we need to establish our own brand of for producing paragliders so we have this design we have testing view but also we have this cooperation in production view because we were a lot in also in big productions so we have quite overall view house what you need to make the paragliding brand so we decide and meanwhile we also meet a few more partners which were interesting to invest money and time to the brand and then we said we give it a try but it was not easy not easy times i think it was not easy to establish the brand we thought it would be easier yeah anything worth

having in life is never easy so i'm glad you guys went ahead with the hard work and we have such an amazing brand in the market now. I'm very

Aninder: curious. I've seen a lot of pilots turning into designers and wanting to try their own thing. How does a journey from a pilot to a designer look like in the sport of paragliding? What do you start with? Which is the direction that you work with if you want to switch from flying paragliders to designing paragliders in our sport? Our story with my brother was slightly different. We started really early. We came from

Anindya Singh: an aviation family. My father, our father was a skydiver and also a sailplane pilot. And then with like really little kids, we were interested in aviation, dreaming of flying all the time. We started the aeromodelling. So we were doing like 15 years from, I don't know, five years old. We started aeromodelling and then we started to design our own aeromodel planes, especially sailplanes. We were interested in sailing. so we did and designed also many cell plane models quite high performance models and then we start to fly with cell planes this was like we were 15 years old we start with the cell planes and also slightly little ultra lights and then at the age i don't know 19 we start We fly in a

local aeroclub and it was not so big freedom to fly there. It was if you want to have some bigger flights and this you were prohibited to do. It was like an army system almost. So that time the paragliders start to pick up with performance and we start to dream about this. So we get one old paraglider and start to learning ourselves alone. And then slowly we come to the paragliding and from then on we start to compete quite fast because we already have big base from cell plane flying and it was quite easy to join these two similar sports. It's just the flying device is

different, but the rest theory is the same. So from there on we started paragliding and already from beginning we see many things which could improve. At that time, I know this was 2000, something like this. We see many things, how the product can improve, especially in performance wise. And we start to play our own and then slowly we get connected. When we get some competition results, we give some feedback to designers or the owners of the companies, the gliders we're competing with. they see that we have some positive feedbacks and some nice ideas and there slowly we start to get more and more involved in firstly we're just little tuning the handling the speed bar system that time we are open

class competition gliders so we were really easy to play And then we see some difference, some modification with it, how this influence in performance and stability and all this. And then we slightly start to learning how to say specifics of paragliding design. It's similar to, let's say, a sailplane or aviation, but on the other side, you have inflatable structure, which are... never the same like designing computer and we start to understand how to work with this and we come to the position when we start to design our own paragliders or we help to design for other brands especially last years before we switch we work with the new so that was the times we learn a lot i just want to dive a little

bit into the feedback part when you say that you guys are giving feedback to the manufacturers do you tell the like what does an ideal feedback from a test pilot or somebody involved in design process look like what do you report back to the company that they can work on yeah i think it's big difference between some just pilots who don't really understand physics and construction behind and the one is that you understand completely the basic on how you are designing another thing you just saying what you want to have and what is not good You cooperate about both things. You can just say, okay, I want to have less pitch or whatever. Or you can say, I want to put more tension here in the sail and make less

camber on the profile on the top surface that will give me less pitch. One is what you want. And another is how you think you will get it with change in construction. I don't have a lot of experience from test pilots because in 777, I do all the job. So I designed the wing. First, I have an idea of what I want to have. Then I go behind the computer, I design the wing, and then I go through all the styles that the wing can be built, so in production. And then I receive the wing, I fly the wing, I do maneuvers. So in 777, from designing till the test flying and maneuvers and

collapsing and preparing for certification, I do it alone. yeah it's quite complex process and time consuming so we don't give so many models out like bigger brands because yeah we are limited in in a person personals in a company and we want to make five good finalized products so we focused until it's finished that sounds very inspiring man as a one-man army you're taking on all the rules by yourself and still putting out amazing competitive gliders out there keep up the good work i would say Yeah, it's not easy. Sometimes maybe I would like to have more output from other pilots, but we don't have a lot of test pilots around me. Some last few years, Nicole Fedel is helping me quite a lot,

especially with smaller sizes wings because it's really hard to design the wing which is not in your weight scale. So for the lighter wings, it's always good to have some light person which can help you and it's more than faster finalizing on the smaller size. For the bigger size, you can always take ballast and do yourself, but for lower sizes, you cannot cut your leg to reduce the weight.

Aninder: So help us understand the design from the drawing board to actually having the wing out in the market. What is the timeline that goes on?

Anindya Singh: Yeah, the timeline, usually the process is around one to two years on the end, minimum. So when you start the model after half or one year, you already start to thinking about replacement of this model. In like all the, yeah, all designing process are like this. When the product comes to the serial production, then already you start to think for the new one, designer wise thinking. Yeah. First, for sure, in paragliders, as we know, we have the certification classes. Certification puts you in some boxes. You are quite limited with, let's say, if you design basic wing, you are already limited for the expected ratio. Then, for sure, you are also limited with the number of cells in each class. Also, this is

because you will not make basic wing with many cells because first it will be too expensive. and so already the classes puts you in some boxes at beginning and then it's up to what you wanna get out of this box in each class so if you design a class you cannot make some special arc or whatever because you are limited with this rolling stability which is requested from the beginner classes so it's many factors but mostly already the Certification put you in some boxes from the start, especially when you have more bigger your knowledge and designing base from the experience you get in a past year. Okay. I just want to simplify this topic. So basically let's talk about matrix. All right. That is a

Aninder: beginner wing. A brand new technology with the winglets, ENA Easy School Wing. So when you as a designer start thinking about Matrix, what was the thought in your head? And if you can just walk our audiences through the process. The Matrix was quite an interesting design we

Anindya Singh: started because we didn't have replacement for eight or seven years in a 777 for really basic wing. for schooling so require requirement was for sure easy take off nice speed stability easy this flare type of flare so the beginner can nicely pull from the slope The biggest focus on designing was put on this rolling stability, which many beginner gliders have, because the beginner doesn't have this dumping effect, doesn't know how to dump this natural oscillation of the wings. So we put in this a lot of effort and played a lot with different arches, with different canopy, this washout twisting the canopy. And then in the end, I pulled from my old database, I flew many different models in the

past, and one really was in my background. That was, I don't know, maybe 15 years ago. One, I think, was UP. One beginner model had some kills. It was not winglets. But some kill really, there were two kills in, was a canopy. And then the two cells were really out, like really big bumps out. And I fly this wing in one acro competition because we were, I think I was a reunion. And it was, we were there for cross country, but they gave me this wing to say, you try do some acros. So I take this wing and immediately after takeoff, I was really excited. surprised how it flew

like on the rails it doesn't have any rolling i keep in my mind when i design the matrix i remember okay this slider have this big little two kills like stabilizers on the top of the surface and really stabilize the wing in this rolling moment and also the same time i think also ozonia it came out with again put the winglets out. It was really the same time when I think about this. I think they put the first wing. I don't know which one was with the winglets. I think it was Photon or maybe this beginner there wing. I think you're talking about Photon as well. Yeah,

Aninder: Photon. And then I said, I need to try also with winglet. And I just cut through all the wingtips of one wing and put it on the one sample of the

Anindya Singh: matrix. And right from immediately, I put these ears on, the winglets on. It was just wingtip cut, nothing special. It works. I took off and the wing was like on the rails. I said, okay, that's it. And then, okay, I make the new prototype with the winglets. I play with the shape of the winglet with the angles right. And it really worked after that. It was simple. No, this movement after takeoff, really like on the rails. but also increased instability in spiral dives. So before was only problem the spiral dive stability because the glider have tendency to lock in if you don't have really flat arc. When you go to more circular arc, you have this lock in spiral. So yeah, these years change really many things. So

that was the basic story how the matrix came with the years. and all ideas we pull out from the past what i experienced with different wings we are all learning you know sometimes you see in the concurrence what they put and you already put in your bank and okay now i know why they put and so yeah we all cooperate it's like humans one make one thing another make another thing and we all join all the best thing in a product so it's yeah evolution how to say I completely agree because there's a saying that great minds think alike. If there are two good designers, they are

Aninder: likely to have similar thoughts when it comes to enhancing performance and safety in the sport of paragliding. But you're talking about a very interesting topic, Aliaz. And winglets are something that have just come back with very strong force and have basically exploded in the market once again. Every new release we see from almost all the leading brands has got winglets incorporated in them. So... To the audience members who are basically having no clue of what winglets are, could you please tell us a little bit about winglets and why they are such a big fad these days? Yeah, mostly old people will remember winglets from advanced usage. Their use, or let's say how I understand their use, was

Anindya Singh: mostly they told that they reduced the induced rack on the end of the wings. so you on the end of the on the wing tips you have pressure differences from upper and bottom surface this makes on the end this vortice induced rack and as i understand they were trying to reduce this induced rack with use of these winglets like the airplanes use it on the wings but the winglet like we use i don't know in our triple seven wings or ic also ozone is using same it's not about the induced rack it's mostly about spiral issues for sure and the secondary for more basic wings for

paramotor wings to reduce this rolling instability which we have if we use the winglet we can shift with normal canopy if we don't use winglet we are forced to don't to not use the natural arcs So natural arc is how the load is distributed and how you get the canopy the most compact because you produce lift in this direction, but also sideways. So you have more like circular arcs, but these arcs have quite strong tendency to lock in the spiral. This is one big problem for certification. Another big problem is this. They have quite this rolling tendency because the shape is quite constant. So it's like you have natural rolling. It doesn't work like damper. If you go to more like these shapes, then you

have more dumping. But when you go to this natural circular or ellipsoid shapes, you have almost no dumping in this rolling motion. So when you add wingtips, you can have a really nice pressurized compact canopy, but with a wingtip it works like a damper. So in this rolling motion is damp because this wingtip has some surface and when you want to move in this direction, the wingtip produces the drag and it's dampening these oscillations. And also for the spiral turn, it helps because you have different speeds in the outside tip and inside tip. So you have a little asymmetric. And also how you make these angles of the wingtips is also quite interesting. With this all setting, you can also have better exit

in a spiral or prevent to have stable spirals, which usually without wingtips, cannot perform unstable spiral they do really stable spiral so you get lock in so let's say these are two big pluses to use winglets but also you get for sure you are penalized with a drag but then if you say okay when i go on speed bar without winglet my wing is all the time slightly oscillating and when i put winglet my wing is stable and goes straight like on the rails. So also this is oscillation, it gives you less efficiency. So it's not always just a laboratorical coefficient of drag, you know, you have to keep all together how is in ELL. So in real air, if your wing is all the time like this doing and you need to constantly

correcting it, you are also making a lot of drag issues and you're losing performance. So on the end, I think if you have stable coenopy, even if the winglets produce, let's say, slightly more drag in theory, on the end you have similar or even better performances. So we will see, maybe in the future, I will not put hand in fire, but maybe in high performance classes like CC, we will see winglets. Maybe small one, but can be I think

Aninder: I want to like this makes it very clear to me you're saying that modalities like winglets or reflex all of these technologies are making piloting easier that means less human input more stability from the wing itself because of this technology correct yeah but it comes with the cost of performance yeah so if you want to simplify it that is if there's a pilot who is happy or is capable of giving the input and using less technologies he will be able to fly much more efficiently and faster for sure it's not only about the canopy on the end it's about the pilot skills and micro tuning so in competition gliders you can afford this because the pilots are super skilled and they are looking for pure

Anindya Singh: performance with their maximum input in controlling the canopy but in the let's say from d class down you have less experienced pilots who put less and less effort in technique of flying and they want to give maximum performance out so in the lower classes the wing tips improve performance but for the really comp class i'm not sure yet and also if you see in our triple seven wings we try to minimize us this to really find this fine tuning that it works like stabilizer you can put it really big it's really easy you put really big and then okay it will make really super stable but it will make a lot of drag so it's about of tuning the shape of the wing tip the right profile of the wingtip, the position

where to put it, and also the angles, how to orientate it to airflow to get what you want from it. So it's many factors. So it's like fine tuning and polishing. The reason why I'm smiling is that this is so interesting because let's talk about two of the most popular two-liner C gliders, or

Aninder: maybe even three. Most selling two-liner C classes are Photon, Arctic, and I'm forgetting the gin. What is it, Bonanza? Bonanza, I think, yeah. Yeah, so Bonanza has a wave-leading edge which cuts the air in a whole different manner. Photon has wingtips, which of course has added drag. And then Arctic is just pure simple wing. But all of they outcompete each other. So what I'm trying to understand is the performance gain or ease of handling, very negligible. And ultimately, it is literally down to the pilot who's under the wing. And all of this is marketing. Or is there something that should be paid attention to these technologies as well? Yeah, for sure. Every technology has some background. It makes

Anindya Singh: differences. But to prove these differences in reality, it's really difficult. We know from our developing in the past how many comparison flights you need to make. with the same equipment to see little gain or difference. If in the competition two pilots are flying, one with Gene, one with, I don't know, with Photon, let's say, and one with Bonanza, if they are, it's difficult to say it's about the performance of these two wings or it's just because of style of flying, how he's correcting micro disruption in the air, how he is balancing the lifts, how he's balancing the sinks. how he's optimizing his speed with the brake and also it's many factors so pilots can make much bigger mistakes and worsening the

performance of the wing like designer can improve it with really tuning and hard work so on the end pilots makes much more than the little designing steps but if you put let's say one pilot on this wing and on another wing and his style of flying is same then he can easily notice we are gaining performance and we are gaining all but people on the end makes how the wings fly also quite a lot especially if they are not experienced how they hold hands how they go in transition even if you fly like this in transition or you fly without hand it's not safety but it's

huge difference is almost one class difference so It's when we fly, it's complex. It's not only the wing. It's how you wear, what you wear, what is your harness, how is your harness position. It's all one. unique system on the end which makes performance so it's canopy it's you it's harness it's your gloves it's your hand position it's everything it's all factors which meant total performance on the end so it's complex things wow man i had a hunch that this was true but thank you so much for saying it honestly i think more people need to talk about this because we often get sucked into the marketing and all the fancy images that we see on social media and everywhere else where brands expose us to them. But a lot of it

Aninder: does come down to such small nitty gritties, which eventually make a difference. If you allow me, Aliaz, and I know that this is one of your competitors and it's okay if you don't want to speak about it, we can cut it out of the show later on. But why does Enzo 3 get the most popularity, man? Gambit is a pretty speedy wing. The Jinn is a pretty fast wing as well. X1 is also fairly competitive. But why is Enzo just sticking onto the top? What's your personal opinion on this? Yeah, lately I'm not super into this competition scene because I have to focus more on the

Anindya Singh: products which we live for. But years ago, yeah, for sure, if the most of people fly it, for sure it's some reason behind it. So that's for sure. One is simplicity of use for performance you get out of it. This is for sure. I didn't try all the competition wings, but I flew ANZO in the past. I tried. And for sure, for the requirements it asks from the pilot. So the difficulty to fly and the performance you get out of it, it's really good balance. So you can focus not only on flying the wing, but also on the tactic. This is one reason. I can say it's quite easy to fly. Let's say if I

give parallelly to our Gambit, which for sure it's pretty sure it's more demanding wing. to fly my personal experience from four or five years ago when we flew it do some competition with the gambit comparison with other wings for sure the climbing was better than all in the class that time it was much better in climbing but yeah the one problem why we didn't really kick out with the gambit in a more massive is because maybe we are small company Second is for sure it was more demanding to fly. Price was also quite high because it was more complex wing. But one also factor is also few other pilots flew it and they all said I was always the highest and I always control the others. If you are only one, if you have, I don't

know, 60 wings which climb at the same level, And then you are in the World Cup, only one with the wing which you climb better. So what is on the end? Every time you pop out. But if this is the beginning of the race, you need to wait because you cannot go in front. So until you have, I don't know, critical mass of the wings which climbs better. Let's say if we have in the World Cup. 20 gambits which will all 20 will go up then it will make difference in competition because those 20 pilots then can pull and fly alone in front but if you are alone

you will not change the style of the race. But when you have 20 or 30 wings which climb better or which are faster, then you will change the flow of the race. Because race is not about one man. It's like cycling. Cross country race is old style. 15 years ago or 20 years ago, when I was racing a lot, you can afford to pull from beginning and solo all the race. But now all the pilots are super technical, super good. It's all other sports in really high level. So you cannot do solo 100 kilometer like we did 15, 20 years ago. So you need critical mass of the wings, which Climb is better.

Let's say 20. Then people will start to think, okay, now Enzo is losing climb. We need to change something. So Ozone will have to do something. But until you have 50, 60, 70 same wings, then you can fly. Honestly speaking, now you can fly 20 years. It's like monoclast. No need to change something because anyway, we all have the same. So it's about the pilot skills, not about the material we fly. So development slowly stops. That's reality in this scene now. As we see, Enzo, last six, seven years, they do fine tunings which are allowed inside or doesn't matter. No big change last six, seven years. It's just fine tunings. That's the reality of it. And one reason is because we stopped prototypes. We are

not allowed to fly prototypes. In the beginning, in the past, the development was much faster because it was allowed to fly with prototypes. So we always make something new. But now it's all stuck. It's almost serial class. You make Wink, you have it for five years, and then you make another one. And you need to have it five, six years because it's a lot of money invested in production, in development, and also in certification. So you cannot change this model every one year because it's too much money in certification and all. So you need to rewind this money that you can make a new model. So certification and all standardization for sure slow down the development, but also improves

the safety. So we need to play with these two balances. That's reality. I have a suggestion for the prototype problem. Why don't any

Aninder: manufacturer takes his proto to the competition site, takes off as a free flyer and still flies with the gaggle, puts the task in his instruments and sees how it gets without being a part of the competition officially. Yeah, this you can do for sure. Maybe they don't allow you in

Anindya Singh: competition. Sometimes they don't allow you even to take off. But it was done in the past already, this, and they still do. But for sure, if you go to competition, you want to have also Some results. I many times when we have competition in my place, I go, I fly beside the people competing with them, but not participating. Just to evaluate. Competitions are the best to evaluate the performance of the flying device because you have big bank of the people and you can compare to this one. So you don't see only to one hands or you see to 10 hands. So if one people is holding

like this hand, another for sure is flying more higher. So in In, I don't know, in five hours of flying, you can average all the impressions you have and you had the right impression. If you only fly with one guy on the slope behind the house all day, it's not the same like you fly with 20 different people and you compare to the whole. Then you have better final observation and evaluation. So the competition are the best to compare. That's for sure. And all they try their best. Thanks for your honesty. It's very kind of you to explain it in such an insightful

Aninder: manner.

Anindya Singh: Sorry, this is reality. It's not about kindness. This is reality. It's nothing to hide. It's just very hard to be brutally honest in today's

Aninder: world. And not a lot of people have the strength. to say the truth that's why i think not only our industry but generally the world needs more people like you who are able to share their unfiltered opinion from the bottom of their heart but i've been very curious about one thing alias you know first of all let me put it to rest gambit is such a cool wing if a pilot is ready to put in the work then the wing will deliver simple as that let's agree on that that all of the all of the wings which are easier to fly be it with technologies with additional winglets, RAST or like the

reflex or whatever it is, they will be easier to fly, but they will compromise on the performance. So any wing which is harder to fly is compromising less on the performance. So the bottom line is if the pilot is willing to put in the work, then he will put in the performance. Yeah,

Anindya Singh: that's true. But anyway, it's really about the balance. And like I say about Enzo, I think they have a really nice balance. And this is the fruit of their hard work, for sure. A lot of pilots in-house which are competing a lot and have a chance to compete a lot. And then on the end, they get this fruit out. For sure, it's not lottery, it's hard work. Believe me. Oh, man, I love your respect that you're giving to your

Aninder: competitor. That's cut down for the work they do. Beautiful. One question that I've been wanting to ask you guys for ages. Why did Spectra and Gambit get banned at one point of time by Civil? Old story. I almost forget details, but this was one thing why the Gambit didn't break

Anindya Singh: through. I think in the end we were kicked out because all other things were not clear. They want to kick us out firstly with what I think was some load tests, I don't know, I forget already, but the last thing, because all these things failed because they were not real, and also others, like Ozone, they had problems with the load tests at that time. But then when the CVIL saw this, they shut down. But the last thing when they kicked us out was we were only there in two pieces. And they said they should be available to all the pilots. We put this wing out just a few days

before and we were only able to complete two pieces. pieces and two of our pilots from Slovenia were there in a team and the last days they were refused to fly. They said you cannot, they were prohibited to fly with the Gambit and then they need to pull out their old wings and fly with their old wings. So that time we were really pissed on all the system about SIVL and many guys there just pretending their position and their company position and yeah. We made some enemies, but it was really unfair to our company. So let's say that time the Giants pushed little company down and they joined the forces together. big brands I will not tell the names but we know all which brands they were so that was not nice

from them it's just sad man yeah it's small sport and we were really we thought also that the people are really honest and they pretend like you see them but then we see real faces and that time we closed many doors with the guys which we believed before that they are like they show but we see that they are not in reality but that's the world we are living i tell you what no matter what karma catches up with all of us man i believe in that and i think that is how the world actually goes around you get what you put in the universe yeah yeah maybe long term in short term doesn't look like

this otherwise the world will turn in differently but but honestly speaking with that time we really lost motivation because of the politics and all these games behind the cc and we also little loose motivation to invest more or more like we would like to invest in this field. So after that, we didn't really focus anymore on the CC. It's pity for us. It's pity maybe for the world, but yeah, that time we little pull back because we see that's all about the politics and we don't, we are not good in politics and we get really unmotivated to play in this field.

Aninder: Did any one of them unofficially say that this shouldn't have happened at any point in time later on in life? There were many polemics about

Anindya Singh: these many males we have, but on the end, if you are big, you can play a lot. If you are small, you cannot. That's reality of the game. And we were never in this committee, in the CCC committee, like others, all the brands, because we don't play with the politics. I prefer to design and focus there.

Aninder: Let's switch to the ENB class, man. Rook 4 has been raving reviews all across the paragliding planet. What is this sensation of a wing all about? Please tell our listeners about it. And what is the amount of R&D that has Rook 4 getting so many positive reviews across various platforms? Yeah, our Rook is, let's say, the main riding horse of the company, of the 777, is also the best-selling product. from the triple

Anindya Singh: seven gliders and we put the most usually most focus in this wing From the pre-seeder, Rook 3, we had certain goals to improve. The first was Rook 3, we had not the best launching, take-off. It was a little delayed due to smaller openings and different designs. So this was one goal to improve this, the take-off. Simplify take-off, make it lighter. Then the second was to make glider even more stable in the air, especially with the speed bar and to make it easy to fly with the speed bar to improve the BC system. So actually the Rook 4 is completely new wing compared to the Rook 3. I think only the cell number is the same, but all the rest is changed. The profile is changed. Sail tensions are changed. The most

biggest changes are the new arc, which is coming due to use of the winglets on the wing. So we were allowed to use a bigger arch, which makes canopy more compact, makes it nice in a thermal link. It's like you can position every bank you want in a turn because this circular shape makes really every position a terra makes like stable so in every position you go it sits there it's not just like this or like this it's really fine tuning of the bank in a turn with the higher arcs then one big focus was to reduce overall weight of the canopy so we start to use lighter materials

We use the new MJ 32 grams on the top and the bottom is with the Porsche light. And also inside we have some hybrid between Porsche hard normal and the Porsche 32 grams. It was hard work optimizing the perforation in every rip, in every cell, not cell, in every diagonal rip to make really light canopy, really nice internal inflation, how they are traveling inside the canopy. so it's really big optimization in the cross holes inside these people usually don't see but there's a lot of hours just how to optimize all these holes inside in the ribs and everywhere a lot of work when you design the wing here so this yeah so this basically this and also new riser system yeah with pc which run really smoothly over the

police and yeah this is basically I want to talk a little bit about the internal structure of a wing because a lot of brands stress on this. The

Aninder: internal structure is all about distributing air and maintaining the pressure in the canopy. Is that correct? Firstly, internal

Anindya Singh: construction is giving shape to the wing. So it's transferring pilot loads from the lines to the canopy. And as all we know, we have supported ribs and unsupported ribs. So supported ribs is where the lines are connected to the rib. And this force then is distributed from the bottom where the line is connected to the top where most of the lift is produced. So it's all about how these forces are distributing and according to this force vector curve they go. you play how you put the cross holes in the ribs. So in the load, speaking about loading ribs now, so the ribs which have lines connected. If a line is connected, then the vector goes of the force to the top surface in some conical shape. And so in between

this, you need to place the holes that you don't make deformation in the ribs. So how you place the holes is really important. How you place it in the supported rips. Unsupported rips are the rips which have no line connections. These rips are just carrying the pure ram air pressure inside. So we have ram air pressure and the canopy without rips will go to the board in physics. So all these rips are carrying, unloaded rips are carrying just these pressure loads. so this you can play again with different shapes of the cross holes inside so it's all about this optimization where the loads are where you have just pressure loads and how you design the holes and which material you use if you use hard

porsche 40 you can put more holes when you go down to the light 27 gram because it's more stretchy you have to again redesign the holes so it's The more you go into the limits of the material, the more precise you are. And one also important factor is production. In 777, all our wings. From the beginning, we started the 777 brand. We were maybe one of the first. All our internal construction is cut by laser. So we can play really detailed with the cross holes in the ribs. We can make a really small one. We can really optimize it everywhere. but we need to use laser so all our

wings are from beginner wing till the high performance things are all cut with laser it increased the production cost but it gives you quality and it gives you this nice fine tuning with the cross spots you can play so i think we are one or maybe one of the only brands which use laser cut for the ribs in every model And for sure, it gives you also the precision of the design. How does internal design structuring look like from a

Aninder: designer's perspective? From the design perspective, it's like I pointed before. First, you have specifics which you cannot avoid. And

Anindya Singh: then you have to play inside these deformations of material and deformation of material. If you make too much hollow spots, you will make an ugly shape of the paraglide. You will have too much deformation. So you will start to lose. So in paragliding, it's always finding balance. of many things it's nothing black or white it's always like one i don't know like symphony all have to fit in a right parameter if you go over this parameter you will lose in a other aspect so it's a lot about your experience like designer for sure every desire make fails but you are learning for these fails sometimes you are pushing the limit you go over the limit and okay it's hot i need to pull back i was too optimistic

here so you put in your bank you remember it next time you improve it it's evolution let's say we can make the same paragliders material wise almost if we avoid super lightweight wings like we have now but The paragliders like we fly now, we could fly 25 years ago. Same performance, same designing. It's just evolution in human mind and your experience bank. It was limitation in software. I completely agree. This was big limitation, but all the rest materials, more or less, they were the same. We can build, you know, as long as it can build 10 or 20 years ago, because materials were the same. So it's mostly evolution, designer evolution, and the software evolution, which

brings us here now. How paragliding really has weighed? Makes sense. So next time a consumer goes out and buys wings, see what the design

Aninder: philosophy of designer is. And then, because that is eventually what has gone in. And that is actually the reason why paragliding Atlas exists. And we do episodes like this to bring out designers. I always say to our customers or the pilots who want to buy our wings, I'm always

Anindya Singh: honest. I say, try the wing. I can tell you everything, you know, but you need to try it and you need to like it and then you buy it. Some pilots like steerable wings. Some pilots like more tamed, tuned, more stable wings. It's all about the, we are different pilots. That's why also we have more brands. Otherwise on the end can be only one brand. But every designer have his personal touch, have his personal focus on things which think they are important. And other designers have different. And so different designers found their different customers sort of. Let's say it like this. Then if you are a big brand, yeah, it's different. But every brand has some nice tunings and specifics in every class.

Aninder: Let's say if your kids come to you for suggestion when they grow up and if they want to fly paragliders as well, what are the three most important things that you will tell them before they choose a wing from a designer's perspective? First, for sure, you need to try the wing if it

Anindya Singh: suits you. Then for sure, it's feedback which you need to take with certain reserve, but it's really important of the community. So if it's a new wing, it's difficult to decide. Usually you see the real value of the wing after one year, I would say. Before can be marketing, can be the, let's say, team pilots and this, which brings something. But on the end, when it gets to the mass of the people, it's about this community feedback. So not the pilots who are involved with the company, but also independent pilots. This is then the real value of the product. This is how I see it. So I would say fly, test it. If the Wink is already on the market for a certain time, look for this community feedback. And then

the third thing also important is the brand for sure. So all these three factors should fulfill and balance and then you decide. Love it, man.

Aninder: Thanks for simplifying it for everybody listening out there. Before we move on to the next topic, I forgot on one very important aspect of the Rook 4. You guys have written very specifically about Magix Pro lines, which are from Edelrid. Edelrid is a manufacturer usually known for its carabiner, but lines are probably a new offering for them. So what are these Magix Pro lines all about and how are they making Rook 4 more awesome than the other riders in E&B category? Actually, either it is with the lines and the 8,000, 7,000 series, it's already 20 years on the

Anindya Singh: market. Maybe it's not well known in lower classes, but these are, we were using like on competition, either those lines. 20 years plus i could have been mistaken i was not aware i thought it was just a carabiner brand but thank you for correcting me this and also i need to point it out when we start the triple seven brand we decide on the rook one to use the same lines like we use now on the rook four just seven thousand series that time and we were With the Rook One, in many aspects, we were quite too fast or in front of the market. So we put something out and it was a big

shock from others because people were not used to these lines. They were used to these lines just in competition, but after our experience, we experienced this is for sure the most stable geometry for the glider. Also, it's really... abrasive resistant because sleeve lines can be easily cut when you go around handling. We put these lines out, the rook one with these lines out, and all the market and the customers were shocked when they received it. They said, oh, how is it possible? How do you put these lines on this wing? And now after 15 years or 13 years, we see we are getting competition lines into this class. So...

I think it's nothing special, those lines anymore. Also other brands, they are using almost still the bottom calories. The Zone is also using a lot of 8,000 series in the serial wings now. So it's really standard now, I think, about the lines. Fair enough. Small things which are included

Aninder: in the risers, let's say pulleys used in the speed system or the mylons. or double coated, single coated. How much of these accessories make a difference when it comes to enhancing performance? Are they more or less equally the same because they are not really interacting with the elements of the air that openly as the other parts of paraglider are? What's your thought on accessories that are being used? It's quite

Anindya Singh: simple to understand. Everything that has connection with the moving air, it has influence in overall performance of the paraglider on the end. If it's just a small carabiner, if it's 30mm or if it's... 20mm one or it's 45mm, again it has some influence. Everything on the end is like I said, paraglider is like some symphony when you put it together in a song. So it's about all the pieces when you put to one monolith and this makes performance on the end. it's just about how much is important to make i don't know 30 millimeter carabiner on the beginner wing is it really sensible to put it or is better to put it 40 millimeter because pilots which are not used to fly have better feeling when they hold

something that is a little bigger in the hands it's all about in which class what you put and why you put it all makes Some reason why it's like this in A class, why you have thicker risers than why in a competition class you have almost nothing or really thin. I was curious, how does a

Aninder: consumer do their research in this accessory choice? Because there's not enough information about accessories on internet. So how do you decide? You mean accessory like harnesses or the accessory on the paraglider, watches in the basic paraglider? The paragliders, such as the pulleys, the mylons, and those kind of things. Yeah, when we started the 777, we started with this in mind. Our philosophy, our idea was to

Anindya Singh: maximize performance in every class. So when we put it rook one out, we tried to maximize what was possible from our class. knowledge but also from material that time when we put rook we put ball bearing pulling everywhere on the para in the risers we put the best lines on it we put the best plastic for reinforcing inside what we have that time we really make sophisticated this rift brake system on the trailing edge rook one was really equipped with competition technology when we put it out and that was our motto in every class when we In 777, we really try to give best what is possible to the pilots. So we don't reduce the pulley quality when we make it. We try to give the pilots the best in every class. Also

about the accessories, we put high quality in every aspect from lower class to the highest class. So yeah, this is because we are like this, we want to have the best what is possible in each class. It's like our philosophy. I think that's the beauty of working or trying to use the

Aninder: brands which are smaller team owned because people like you are in it purely for the sake of passion. And when it comes to passion, there's no cost cutting or compromise on the quality. So that is quite a big comfort customers can place in small brands like these to go out and make their choices? We are a small brand for sure and I don't have a manager telling me, no, we will not put this, it's too expensive. I decide what I like, I

Anindya Singh: put. Maybe we pay the price business-wise on the end, but I like to give people what is the best, what I think is the best. This is our philosophy and how our brand is running. Maybe it's not the best economical way for the company, but I want to give the best possible to the customers. Tell

Aninder: me one thing, Alia. How do you think when you know that you and your team have been responsible for giving so many people the happiness for the art of flight that brings them their life? Because I believe 777 has been around for quite some time. It's an incredible achievement to make people fly. How do you look back on that? Every designer or company or the team of the company is happy when they receive the feedback from the

Anindya Singh: ground, from the playfield, what you are producing. So for sure, you really feel good when you see that your work, it gave the right juice to the customers where they buy it. So this is for sure the biggest award you can get, like designer or the company. happy people around the world flying your products. That's really affordable. Another question comes to mind because there are obviously two sides to every coin. How do

Aninder: you handle criticism, if any, because nobody's perfect, everybody can make mistakes and slip up. So how does the room for improvement look like in a life of a designer like yourself? From every mistake or problem, you learn something. You have to be realistic about it, not hide it. And you

Anindya Singh: need to learn from it and try to avoid it in the future. So if you have certain problems, you can try to solve it if possible in serial production or you remember it and solve it for the future of the models or your overall brand. So always you have ups and downs, but sometimes also you have problems which are out of your... Because we are a small brand, we don't run our product. We have big production. We are producing in a big facility where most of the big players are also producing. And some problems or many of the problems are coming from the, let's say, can be

just basic material problems. One is design problem. This is easy to solve because you learn and you try to improve. I don't know. They said your rook is not take off well, or they said, I don't know, something. And you remember. You go again behind the computer, you see why, you try to change it, you make prototypes to change it, and for the new model, you have a resolution of this problem. But variation can be in materials, it can be in the canopies, it can be in the lines. You are not designing the material, you are not designing the lines. You are just deciding which lines you use. So if you have problems constantly with one material, then after one or two years, instead, Okay, these guys have some

problems and I cannot change it because I'm not designing the material. So you start thinking for the new model that you will change the material because this one is not constant enough or something like this. Paragliding designer, you are not designing the material or the lines. So you can choose it, what you will choose, or you'll try to choose the best, but always it can be variation and problems. But designer mistakes, these are the most easy to learn and to avoid it in the future. But all the rest, which are coming from the other production, there is more difficult and you feel hopeless sometimes because you are just one fish in a big pond. I can imagine that's a tough place to be. When it's

Aninder: beyond their control. If we just say the cloth material for the canopy. On the end, we have two productions which are mostly used. It's Porsche,

Anindya Singh: it's Domenico, and now it's MJ, Myungjin from Korea. They produce for all the brands. So sometimes Ozone, they had bad roll. Sometimes we had bad roll. And if it's accidentally... sneak to the all the checking phase and it comes in production then you will have some maybe gliders which have some issues but this we try to eliminate you try to eliminate you try to have the quality control in productions and all this but always error sometimes also the big commercial planes they fell down because the human error for material errors is complex many factors and sometimes mistakes happen you need to learn from them and try to improve for the future and to be better for the whole sport on the end a question

comes to my mind when it comes to making commercial sense so let's say designers have always complained about lack of money that they get for

Aninder: their effort that's that's no rocket science people put in way more effort and then they don't get merited equally customers keep on saying that the sport is getting more expensive by the day yeah so when i look at the supply chain it is the raw material manufacturers as you said mj dominico porsche which supplies to factories like aerodynamics and the one in Thailand and whatever in China, like one who manufactures for third parties or for specific own companies. And then that gets distributed into small brands like yours, which eventually sells to the final customer. Like who in this supply chain is making the most money? Because everybody is complaining that there's not enough money

Aninder: in this book. Yet it is so expensive. yeah actually money comes from the numbers if you are a small company you will never make money if you are a

Anindya Singh: big company you will make more this is reality in many sports not only paragliding or in all industry the smaller you are the harder is to survive or you need to be even more enthusiastic and have bad salary and still good work you know that's reality in our sport i have the this company not because of the money i have it because of the passion and the life i like to live If every other work I will go to work, I will have better money with my knowledge that I'm pretty hundred percent sure. But I like lifestyle and I on the end, I like you work one year, then you make

something, you put it in a backpack, you go in the mountain, you pull and you fly and you say, this is also the salary. You fly and you said, this I make and you enjoy and you fly. On the end, you live only one. You don't live for the money. You live for the enjoyment, for the pleasure, for the passion. That's my point of view. I hope more people can find the strength, me including, to believe in this and stick to it, no matter how

Aninder: hard it gets. Keep up the hard work. As we are reaching the end of the show, there's one topic I've been curious about when it comes to 777. What's your take on two-liner technology? Now we have a whole new class of two-liners exploding in the paragliding scene. When is the next big thing coming from you guys and what are your thoughts on it? For sure, it's obvious and it's pretty clear that this class holds well and will

Anindya Singh: stay and it has many reasons why. And also we are focusing and working. We made several prototypes in the last two years and we are playing quite a lot, but still not there. I'm not super happy yet. So for sure, if we will put it out, we want to put it out that we will be happy about it, not just frequent in the market. That's our philosophy. So we are still playing. The whole was to finish this year, but we cannot promise anything because we are a small company. and focusing on the evolution of the new Knyte the Knyte 3 this is in the low mid B class we are working on these two

projects and are quite limited with the test pilots the new queen or the i don't know what will be in the name also is the question with a small company like us we will keep only one sea it will be only two liner for the future or we will keep it two liner and three liner because we cannot afford so many models like bigger companies we need to rethink this two liner in the c class takes a lot of pilots the three liners are really or they should step one down to make really simple three liner in a c class which is almost b the two liners are almost d class So you don't have a big

space in a C class nowadays. So for the small company, it's really difficult to have two models in a C class. I don't know classic queen. We have now three liner, which is flying fine, but for sure you cannot compete with two line up. We all know we will not make the but it's still small class to have two models in it. Bigger brands, they can afford small brands. question of what to do, or we make two models in the C or we just make two liner and the rest is already look like it is now. Yeah. I was actually wondering because let's say even five years ago before the B

Aninder: class started exploding, because B was just low B for quite a long time. And then people used to jump to three liner C. So let's say five, 10 years ago, upgrading wings was so much more easier. that you come out of a school you either go for a wing or a low b wing and then you fly that for like good two three hundred hours you get your handling become comfortable in turbulent air and then switch to a three liner you're pushing your limits to e and c three liner that is you're pushing your limits and then you fly that for two three hundred hours then you go to a two liner so there

was a very embedded safety factor in the progression for every pilot yeah and now you have like low a high a low b mid b high b jesus man it's

Anindya Singh: endless choices how do you even decide yeah but this is for sure for the customer this is big plus so for sure the for the big companies this is game to play but if you are more limited company low smaller budget then you need to focus and decide you cannot follow the biggest you need to focus where you will put your knowledge your expertise and maybe just offer there something really good finished unique not 10 or 20 different models so if you are one man on the end in the computer and testing and all you need to focus and sometimes do like this and said no i

will try to do just this and try to finish this and i will not look what all others do so in if you are in position like we are You need to make focus and do this the best or what you can do the best and the rest, leave it to the others or bigger. No, but I'm not sure if this game is healthy to play or

Aninder: not, because there is something known as decision paralysis that the human brain experiences. Decision paralysis is when you're given too many choices in modern day capitalist society. When that happens, you tend to pick, okay, if you get lucky and if you're super serious, you will make the best choice for yourself. But often human brain gets super confused when there are endless choices and there is a possibility that you end up making a wrong choice. If you have too many things to evaluate, it's difficult to get final result. That's for sure. Yeah. So the reason why I'm saying this is if a customer is coming straight out of school, somebody is saying that a high B is for me, not knowing how that high B is

going to react out of the school. And then with the two liner Cs coming in, maybe people will jump to two liners much quicker than they should. So is this really helping the industry or is this actually taking us further back? Honestly speaking, If you are first in some field, you are always

Anindya Singh: taking short time fruit and then reality comes behind. So for sure, I'm also afraid some people for sure. I see many also pilots in my neighborhood. Some they have already accidents and this you don't see this right after it. So it always some delay. So if you put, I don't know. new model two liner out for sure beginning you will sell first one a year or two they will sell well and then lately you will see what is reality it's not for everyone that's for sure two liner it's super compact wing it's super nice to fly if you understand how it works and how you fly it

otherwise you think it's super stable but when you come to one moment when it collapsed the collapse is quite different than on the three liner that we all know who the pilots who are testing and who do maneuvers we know how its reaction on three liner or how is reaction reality in two liner but people did this stability which exactly stability so they go even in worse hair and when the collapse came is like big surprise because they think it cannot happen but it can happen every time for sure riders will always call us but how they collapse is another question some people understand this and they don't push the same limit like they push on the three-liner some people don't understand and they get

surprised and they have accidents and that's we cannot avoid i think this is about also about your self evaluation but for sure if you have possibility to buy and you are betting your evaluation you can buy it like you said so always are pluses and minuses in every design i think somehow having too much technology and too much r d does go a little bit towards the, what is that theory of natural selection, which is

Aninder: survival of the fittest. Darwinism eventually wins, all I'm trying to say. So no matter how many expensive toys you bring up, it still comes down to your own decision-making. This is more about yourself, how to say, that you are knowing yourself about the customer. For share

Anindya Singh: industry, they can give you every choice, but in the end, you have to be maybe it's more have to be put to the education of the pilots it's not only basic exams but also how to educate the pilot that they are realistically evaluated themselves and when you are realistically not by your friend but yourself you need to evaluate i am really able to fly those wings or not Every time when pilot come to me to ask to buy the wing or I always asking what you are flying, you feel confident on this. Why you want to change? I'm not just selling the glider. It's somebody asking me. So it's why you want to change the wing or why you want to buy a wing? Because you are overgrown the lower class. You feel that you can go

in every metal condition in this class. Why you want to go to Y class higher? Because tendency nowadays is that by my personal what i see is that mostly the pilots are flying one class to high wings that's reality for my i see i agree i agree completely better if they go one class lower on the end of the day Let me share this personal thought here. I was flying Arctic for quite a long time. And I was shitting my pants every time I went

Aninder: full bar on that wing. Because even a little bit of turbulence, I was like, oh my God, I don't know how two-liner is going to react or how hard it's going to bite. And then I am flying UP Triangle X right now, which is almost three. It still has all the three lines in the center part of the canopy. Man, I can go full bar eyes closed on this wing. It is that comfy. And just the amount of peace it brought in my flying was like, why did I even upgrade to two liner? The reason why I said this is because marketing eventually does affect every human and me and you are no

different. So if we are being advertised wings, which are looking faster, sexier, we will want to fly them. My question is, are we as an industry failing to provide safe practices out to the audience and just focusing on commercial aspect of it? Because eventually cash is king. Yeah. It can be what is the end result, and I think we've already seen a little of this result. We are losing community. Less and less people are

Anindya Singh: flying. That I feel here. Like in Slovenia, I have feeling the old pilots are going out. We have many newcomers from the basic courses, but they don't stay in a sport because they don't pay the price, the sport request. They don't invest the free time enough to start enjoying the flying. That's the problem with flying. You need to invest really a lot. You need to be really enthusiastic to start enjoying this sport because it's complex to understand. Mostly people do basic courses. They fly one, two years. And even if they live in the dreamland, like in Slovenia here, you have takeoff every 20 kilometers. They still live the sport because they don't invest enough time to really enjoy the

cross-country spirit and the philosophy of the sport. It's funny and shameful at the same time that we call this free flying, yet it is one of

Aninder: the most expensive forms of flying in human history. Every year is more, yeah. It's pity, but it's like this. My curiosity stemmed from the fact that recently a German brand came out with an E&B two- liner, and that was eventually going to happen. Are you aware of the paraglider called Lilo X launched by ProFly? But it's a big class, you said, but it's not certified, or is certified? You know, help me understand. The certification card in front of the paraglider technical details says DHV slash LTF, and then it says I dot B. So I don't understand what kind of certification is IB. It says small i. This I don't know also. One is, you have two standards. One is EN. It's European norm. And another is almost

Anindya Singh: same as DHV to sell on the German market. Nothing else. But it says i.b. So it does not say DHV 2 or DHV 1 or something like that. It's like B class or I don't know. I first time heard now about this. because do me a favor man just click on the link that i send you in the chat right now anyway the time

Aninder: will tell i always say on the end the time will tell if it's the right way or not

Anindya Singh: For sure it's possible to make two-liner with little different approach. You can make also two-liner in B class, but question is if you really need it there. This is always a question. It's like weed can make you happier. But do you really need weed to make you happy? Yeah, I understand what you are pointing out. But usually nowadays, the revolution doesn't bring you everywhere anymore. In paragliding, it's about small steps. The last revolution was this. For the certification, it was accepting collapsing glides in a C-class. I was a little surprised they accepted it, but okay, it doesn't matter. Maybe next year they will accept it, maybe also in a B. I will not say anything.

Everything is possible. We are all humans in the end. It's about the politics in the end. If this is out of my hands, I will just work on what they... If they pull a new standard, I will work according to this. I have no power to change it or motivation.

I try to really avoid the politics. It's not my pleasure. I prefer to do other things in my life. As long as it rocks your world hard enough, it is a

Aninder: pleasure in my life to bring out all of these information unfiltered, completely honest to the paragliding audiences out there. So I'm going to continue to do that. Yeah, nice work. Thank you, man. It's quite an honor and a pleasure to have somebody who's so easy to talk to like you. I would like to extend the thanks back to you. I have no boss behind. I can say whatever I think. Maybe sometimes it's not good, but it's me. That's all we need. Alias, I think with that, we have come to the end of the show. But before I let you go, Alias, we have a tradition on the show where I

request my guests to share one flight with them from their flying career that has stuck with them that they would like to talk about. So if there is that one flight, I and my audience would love to hear from you, man. Yeah, for sure. One flight which... State in my head is the world record

Anindya Singh: flight, not from the competitions, but from the record hunting in South Africa. When we sat with my brother, this was the free flight discipline, was a distant flight. And this was really nice experience, really radical conditions, height over 6,000 meters. Sometimes ground speed over 120 kilometers per hour and was done in seven hours and a half. So it was quite fast for the days for 426 kilometers. The time was 2007, I think, was world record in a distant flight, but was not certified because we flew 426 kilometers.

and then we had a convergence zone with a sea breeze effect with a low ceiling like a fog coming and high plateau mountains so we have to fly 20 kilometers minus back was just beginning of gps and the fie forget to change the rule So it was set from takeoff till the landing, not the furthermost point. They, after this hour claim, they change it. They say, apologize to you, but we couldn't get the world record efficiently because of the mistake of the FIA bureaucrats that time. So that was the first time I got that experience with politics.

And then it continued many times, so that's why I'm avoiding politics. I don't want to make bad time for other guys like some guys did for me. But it was really amazing to fly with my brother. We took off on the winch in 20 mini steps. For the whole flight, seven hours, we didn't see each other. But on the end, we landed at the same place. It was really amazing. After seven hours and 400-something kilometers, you land in the same field like your flying buddy. It was really a life-remembering experience for me. And really... Fast conditions, extreme heights. I think one day I would like to repeat in that style, South African style. It's really hard, fast flying. It's not like Brazil with the low ceiling and many

thermals. Here you get thermal from some low saves we have 50 meters above the ground in 60 it's crazy and then you drift one thermal 20 kilometers like this you come to 6 000 meters and then the next 30 40 kilometer no thermal just light and then again from zero up so it's really in some cases really radical but if you are a good pilot it's really yeah it's unforgettable there south africa is really nice place if you want to fly hard condition it's place to go yeah what was your average speed like that must be like 60 or something no it was let's say seven hour and half or 400 kilometers so average was around 50 or something like that Man, that's insanity. It's really, like I said,

ground speed sometimes was over. When we were 6,000 meters high, it was ground speed 125 sometimes. Did you get any collapses in that flight or

Aninder: any kind of turbulence or anything? Turbulence, for sure it was, because when you get low, usually in the flatlands you have thermals.

Anindya Singh: You try in South Africa, it's a little different style because it's so windy. And quite flat, not really steep mountains, but usually mountains, they don't give you... kickers or big leaves. Usually you look for big depressions like lakes or riverbeds. There is isolated air which can overheat. So the wind goes over this depression and it really heats up the air and then when it kicks up, it's really like strong and big balloon. So usually you are looking for depressions, dry lakes or riverbeds. It's quite different. But the thought just came to my mind,

Aninder: like 120 kilometers an hour. And if one side stops flying, there's even a small deflation. You have inertia, but this is ground speed. Airspeed

Anindya Singh: for sure. Also at 6,000 meters, your true airspeed is quite high. If your glider, it flies, I don't know. 50 60 let's say 60 per hour ground level there at 60 meter you can do maybe 10 percent more you can do almost 70 per hour because the air is thinner so the your true speed not indicated speed the true air speed it's 10 percent higher or more for sure no oxygen or a lot of those kind of things i experienced at beginning we have only one bottle so which flight we share we change one time i was flying another time he was flying And then I had really bad experience the

flight before the world record. It was perfect day. I flew 350 kilometers. I came from zero level. It was around 1000 meter above the ground was plateau. And I make one time climb to 6000 something without oxygen. and yeah then i get hypoxia i couldn't get down i was losing call i couldn't move hands my legs were like i was just the core was working with my body and was still going up and i had big problem yeah i need maybe 20 minutes to get down to four three thousand meter and was i was almost like I couldn't move. I was just flying straight and tried to do collapse to go

down, but I couldn't. It was like convergence for just going up, up and I said, oh shit, this was really like life treating for me. And after that I said, I don't go without oxygen because it can kill you. What basically happens, your body parts stop moving. So it's like classic hypoxia. I started to lose the vision, the power in hands, the legs were not working. It was just the core of the body still worked, but all the rest was like slowly going out. So it was really not a good experience for me, but I learned. There are some rules in aviation and why they are. Usually

the rule in aviation is from 3,600 meters you need to use the oxygen. And for sure this rule is there for some reason. If you don't believe what you experienced. But the main reason why I had this hypoxia was I was really gaining 5,000 meters in a shot in 20 minutes. In just one thermal. So I was not adopting to the height. Slowly I would just bring there in one thermal. So that's why... 20 minutes you spent in a single thermal. Yeah, yeah. How many turns, man? That must be like nauseatic for you to keep on turning. This is one reason why South Africa is special. You

really go from 1,000 meters, you can go to 6,000 in just one turn. And you travel maybe 20 kilometers. When you end thermaling 6,000 meters, you almost don't see when you pick up the thermal because you drift so much. I'm still interested why nobody goes again there for sure it's quite radical flying it's not like Brazil but it's still possible to make some bigger flies there I believe But it's only maybe that time we were there one month and was one day in this year that was for the world record. So you need to have luck. You can do many 300, 300 something, but to do 500, I

don't know. I think the biggest flight now in Africa is 600 or 550. I don't know. 550, I think something like that. Yeah. I think the numbers, the

Aninder: magic number of 600 hasn't been hit yet. Funny. I don't fall so much last time, but yeah, I would like to go one time more in South Africa to fly.

Anindya Singh: There is special flying there. Let's take your proto, the two liner C that's going to come out. Yeah, this will be good, I think. You don't need more, I think. For the Africa, with this ground speed, you don't need a better wing. The two-liner C is enough. I was flying in Kenya last month

Aninder: and did a 200 in Cario, and it was just a very easy... You fly in South Africa, you fly... Just quite dry thermals. It's a mid desert and it's

Anindya Singh: just pure dry air. Sometimes it's some little puffies appear at 6,000 meters like cumulus, but very little. If you have more humidity, you have thunderstorm for sure. It's so high radiation, sun and gradient. So it's super dry area, but super fast. It's really strong and fast. The wind gradient, it's really crazy. When you are maybe 200 meters above the ground, you still have 50 per hour wind. And then you set when you first land, I said, fuck, it will kill me. And then just last 20, 30 meters, it really goes to maybe 10 kilometers or 50 kilometers behind, but not more. But when you are 200, you are still like 30 kilometers reverse. Oh, shit. Holy shit, man. So it's really one-way ticket, yeah.

It's just one way with the wind, like balloon. So you basically go all the way up to cloud base, which is super high, 3, 4, 5, 6, whatever, and then

Aninder: you almost bomb out and you pick up another one and then you go all the way up. Is that how it is? Usually it's really big steps between the

Anindya Singh: terminals. So you maybe glide 40 kilometers and then it's another terminal. If you are lucky. Otherwise, usually it was always if you were sometimes 6000 meters, then the next one was low save quite sure. This was quite practiced area. Maybe really in the end of the day, you maintain to stay 4000 meters level and just do dolphin flight and maintaining the altitude. At the beginning, it was usually up again, back again, up again, down to the ground. So it's nerve wracking. That's a lot of brain work, to be honest. Yeah, it's quite stressful. The day we flew the world record with brother, we were a group of more Slovenians. And all the rest of the guys said, we go down, it's too strong. It will kill

us. And we said, no guys, this is the day for the record. And all the rest, they went down and we flew that day. Because it was almost lenticularis in heights. It was super strong. But you need that day, otherwise you will not make it. It's quite stressful. You need a few days to adapt. It's not for everyone. But why did you make any contact with your brother during the flight? Were you too far apart or not have radios? We had radios, but the connection was not good. He was out of my sight because we take off on the winch. We have only one winch because we were limited to

resources. So it was one winch. Usually Paul saw the rope break many times. after when he disconnect and before i prepare and launch was already out of the site what is interesting why we met when you analyze on the end almost same spot because your vector of choice due to the really strong wind is really limited so you can drift only few degrees of the optimal course so if you want to fly maximum distance you stay in the wind direction Because your glider speed is too small to compensate 50 per hour wind. So you fly in this sector. You must be jumping in joy after

Aninder: seeing each other seven hours later. Yeah, for sure. Especially me, because I make a few kilometers more than my brother. He

Anindya Singh: was not jumping.

Aninder: I bet you're the younger one then. No, no. Opposite. Same here. born is december so his dominance in years is not big not enough no glad that you get to share this joy with somebody somebody so close in your family man yep i honestly don't want to end this episode i feel there's a lot of time with my guests and the conversation is so enriching and it's so nice but since it's a podcast there's only limited time we can devote to this cause so For now, I think we'll put an end to this, Elias. But honestly, talking to you has been pretty nice. And I'm pretty sure my audience is

feeling the same right now. Thanks, dude. Thanks a lot. And I can't wait to bring you back again. Yeah, thank you for the invitation and all the

Anindya Singh: best.