Eddie Colfox : Storytime : Chasing Adventure With the Real OG John Silvester & 3 Decades of Making Memories Across The Globe

Aninder: Yo yo yo, what is up pilots across the world, welcome back to your weekly dose of awesomeness here at paragliding atlas. In case you're new here, I'm your host Anindar Singh and in case you haven't done so already, go do me a favour and smash that like and subscribe button and drop me a rating wherever possible because simply that is the most efficient way we can force the algorithms to bring this awesomeness of all things paragliding to more pilots out there and eventually make the skies a better place to be. And as you might have noticed, we are releasing this episode a bit ahead of schedule. And the reason for that is we have so much amazing content lined up and coming your way that we simply do not have

time to stagger it out for later releases. But... With that being said, the only catch is that we have enough internet to actually make it happen because we are traveling to some really amazing places on the planet Earth. And I'm not going to spill all the beans here. So as I always say, stay tuned, stay excited because the magic is just getting started. Anyways, as amazing as it sounds, only time will tell how much of that we are able to manage. But for now, let's focus on today's episode. And guess what, ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls and everyone along with them, it's once again time to bring back the man, the myth, and one of the very own of the OG tribe that were the first ones who more or less

invented the art of what we know today as Volbev adventuring. And this time around, he's sharing much more than just navigating the skies. And with that, I mean that he's sharing some of the most amazing stories and memories that he has managed to create with over three decades of flying while exploring the world from above, hanging under a humble aircraft called paraglider. And that too, with some of the most pioneering pilots that our sport has seen from back in the day. But yeah, enough of hyping this up for now. I would say you guys are smart enough to know where to put in your effort and find out what I'm talking about. So for now, let's dive right in and I hope you like it.

Eddie Colfox, what an absolute honor to see you second time on the show, sir. Welcome to Paragliding Atlas one more time. It's a pleasure to be

In: here again. It's nice to talk to you again, Aninda. That was my luck. I'm just older than you. Older, wiser, and more experienced, I think. Let me

Aninder: add on to that one. Fair enough, Eddie. This time around, we are joining in for a very special topic, which is the topic of storytellers. And I believe somebody with your experience who has seen the sport... evolve and thrive and survive through various dynamics during the past years. Tell us a little bit about what our audiences are in for and what does three decades of experience bring in from your end today? I was born in

In: 1969, makes me 56 years old now, and I just loved the idea of flying. I was massively influenced by all the hang gliding on TV in the 70s. when it first came out and then I had a cousin that did it and I was just determined to do it as soon as I could. But that took a while because I first viewed it when I was like 15 or 13. And then I had a cousin that died hang gliding, so my family weren't keen on letting me do it for a little while. I had to wait until I was independently able to get to places. Sorry for your loss, Eddie. It's quite a tricky thing to navigate in this sport. It wasn't

good. That's the wrong word to use. But yeah, it was an early introduction to the fact, although it looked really exciting and fun, that it was very real and there was danger. Fair enough, Eddie. But just for the perspective of audiences, I think the write-up that you shared,

Aninder: you had quite a detailed description of Ross Somerville and your first paragliding flight. Let's dive right into it. How did the art of flight entice you and how did you get into this? My first paragliding flight was after... three years of wanting to learn to hang glide at the time i was

In: working on ships and it was difficult to get it together because i couldn't carry it around and the schools were all in different parts of the country and i was hardly ever on leave i was hardly ever in the uk but but in so doing with the hang gliding i'd met this guy ross he was a good mate of a good mate and one of the very early proponents of paragliding. I wasn't there at its inception. I started in 92, I think, 91, 92. But Ross had something called a hot dream. He'd had a hot dream flight where he didn't accidentally engage with Seabreeze Convergence. He'd

done a 98-kilometer flight way back in 1989 or 1990, I believe. I have to check the stats somewhere. And then, so I was in the UK and Ross came to visit and we went for a walk. He insisted on bringing this strange nylon bag with him, this little bag. And he insisted on walking up a particular hill. I thought that was normal because he was a hang glider pilot and I was a keen but hardly flowing hang glider pilot. And we wandered up this hill coincidentally, of course, was facing into wind. And then he started to get this. He let me in on the truck and said, this is a

paraglider and this is what I've achieved. We had a lot of fun being dragged through cowpats on top of the hill, ground handling it for a bit. It was quite windy because we were getting dragged through cowpats. And then he bummed me off the hill. That was my first flight. I flew in a straight line for quite a long time and landed. It was a big adventure, but I wasn't completely green. I'd done a little bit of hang gliding and we did spend 10, 15 minutes being dragged through cowpats before I got bummed off the hill. Thank you for your honesty, Eddie. A lot of us go

Aninder: through our own adventures when we learn to ground handle. But Eddie, just for perspective, how did the free flight scenario look at that time? Was hang gliding ruling the scene up to a point where it was easy enough to someone to just be curious about it and there were providers out there? Or did people have to really dig in and find the right person and get in the community and get the trust? What was it like if you wanted to fly back in the day? You had to dig in and go and give it a go. You had to be prepared to get in the car and drive to places. But then there were

In: schools in the UK. There were many more hang gliding schools than there currently are, but there still weren't very many. There was one in Dartmoor. And in my early days of paragliding, I had to go all the way to Derbyshire or Wales to get it together. But I was very fortunate in that within a year of trying paragliding, a chap called Andrew Pierce, who's a great mate, There was also a school in the Isle of Wight, High Adventure, and Andrew had been working for High Adventure, which was part of Airwave, which was the precursor of Ozone, and half the team of Airwave ended up starting up Ozone. And Andrew was part of that crowd, and he came and started a school, Flying Frenzy, and I was its first

student, although I'd done it a little bit prior to meeting him. And Andrew and I, we're both farmer's sons from this part of the country, West Dorset on the south coast of the UK. And under Andrew's guidance, Andrew set up Flying Frenzy as a student and a co-farmer. We managed to get some permissions locally, and it was great. He took me through my first year or so of properly learning to fly. I scared him witless because I was full of young dumb and full of cum or whatever, however they said in the UK. I was very enthusiastic. I got picked out of many bushes and small trees. He kept me safe and taught me a huge amount. He and I have had a long flying relationship, which we still do. I ended up being

involved in running the school and working. I became an instructor very early on in my paragliding. Of course, one needs to work to be able to spend lots of time doing something. You either need to find the money and leisure time or you live the job. And that's what I chose to do. I became a paragliding bum. I did a little bit of instruction and all the British comps and met some wonderful people. That's when I first met John Sylvester, who I imagine 90% of people on this podcast will know of him, if not look him up, because he was the first very visible Volbiv pilot.

There's a fantastic film from nowhere to the middle of nowhere that was made in the first year I went to India, I believe. I think it was made in 1994. four or five which where he and this guy alan hughes did this massive flight from dharamsala to most of the way to nepal not one flight of course and a number of flights camping out they did it on on tandem and so in my opinion it's the best paragliding movie of all time because it shows the general public what it's like because alan hughes's face just reflects all the fear and excitement of all your first flights, but he's

doing this massive vol-biv across a lot of the Himalayan range. I've seen that video multiple times and one thing that blows my mind is that

Aninder: back in the day when GoPros and action cameras were a distant dream, just figuring out how to stay in the air longer than planned or finding the appropriate clothing and the safety mechanism along with it were quite a challenge. And then these guys go out there with the camera record all of that and edit it and put it out in one of the most enriching storytelling manners I've seen. So I think we'll put a link to that video in the show notes. And also the Birdman and the Karakoram one, which was a later one that I was involved in, that was still using fairly big

In: cameras. I made this extraordinary one. It was really just a fun thing because the first time I went to Hunza in Pakistan, I got given this massive camera that I just couldn't put anywhere because it was so big. I couldn't attach it up in the lines. It would have killed me. And so I ended up just having it between my legs. And consequently, it got a dirty lens and everything. But it was just, as you say, extraordinary to be able to use that tech and those sorts of demanding conditions. But Alan had come from a kayaking and climbing filmmaking background. He'd made some amazing films. Stone Monkey is a fantastic film that he made. And I can't remember the names of the other ones, but look him up. Alan, A-L-U-N

Hughes, H-U-G-H-E-S Hughes. There's some extraordinary stuff that he made. He's an old man now. He's in his 70s. So yeah, people have been doing amazing things for ages. Absolutely. And that is the reason why a pioneer pilot like you and everybody else that you shared the airspace

Aninder: with can inspire the next generation with your stories. But take me back in time, Eddie. How was the visualization like? How did you see that the sport would grow? Because let's say when you were just getting the early hours under the wing, when cross-country wasn't even a thing invented or something that people would plan out, what was the definition of having fun with a paraglider look like? It's not true to say no one had

In: gone cross-country, because as I just said, Ross had done this amazing flight, and people had been doing small flights. Ross held that record for ages, because it was a lucky break that he went quite so far. People were doing 20, 30, 50-kilometre flights in the UK at that time, and overseas it was greater. I can't remember what the South... There was a South African... No, Namibian record. At that time, that was the world record. And I can't remember the numbers. I'm sorry. But it was over 100. It was quite a long way. It was possibly over 200 even then. And what kind of glide ratios were the wings? The top wings, I'm trying to remember what the top wing was. I think it was about seven, six and a half. Training

wings were less than that. By about 95, you were getting things like the Nova Xenon. I may be wrong with my numbers, but some proper tech head will get in touch with you and say, Eddie got it slightly wrong. Roughly the early to mid 90s, the Nova Xenon came out and that was definitely a game changer in my early years. But just before, just as I was around, there was the Airwave Black Magic. That was just as I arrived in the sport. And there were some groundbreaking flights. The world record out in return was set in beer. by a French guy called Xavier Raymond in a competition

that I think was 1989. Fair enough. Going out and chasing adventure, was it basically about, like, were people actually taking all of these

Aninder: pilgrimages or travels specifically for cross-country, or was it more or less that they were still experimenting with the equipment and figuring out how to get the know-how? Cross-country was an aspiration of only a few members of the club. I think is the way to answer this. Most

In: people were very content just to soar up and down on whichever ridge they were on. But people were definitely going cross-country, but it was only a handful in the club. Nowadays, of course, at least half the British clubs are expecting to go cross-country. The people now in their first couple of years, the ones that are as keen as I was, are probably doing 100k flights. The equipment has definitely vastly improved. And it's safer. That's the thing. The comp wing back then was really scary. You'd expect the comps that I was doing back then, you'd expect to have massive collapses. You'd expect to be turned on every good day. You'd go chasing. If you were chasing the lead gaggle or part of

the lead gaggle, you'd see someone go into a thermal. You'd see half their wing fold up. You'd see them correct it. And that's where you'd go. That's where the good stuff was. Love it. The mayhem, as we all know, cloud-based mayhem.

Aninder: Yeah, I'm so glad that there were like a bunch of people who believed in this madness and still made the most out of it, regardless of how many challenges it came. But how did the acro scene look like, Eddie? Was it just the wing-overs or were people doing a bit more than that? Or were there anything at all? It was... I think on purpose, just the wing-overs.

Fair enough. The thing being on purpose. Alright, because acro came in fairly later on in the industry, but spiral dives, wing-overs, these have been two of the basic maneuvers which have stayed since the inception of paraglider. Yeah, that's correct. Spiral dives and

In: wing-overs, we would do those. And then the beeline stall was quite common, and various other maneuvers to descend. But giving names to all the Acro maneuvers was definitely not a rant. You weren't doing them in control. I'm quite glad that Acro wasn't finessed in my early days, because I might have tried too hard in that scene.

Aninder: I'm sure a lot of pilots in the audience can resonate, because everybody loves pushing their limits when they're... I don't know, is this testosterone thing or is it like just whatever you said, young, dumb and whatever thing, you know, that people just love doing something out of their comfort zone. It resonates with the saying that there are bold pilots and old pilots, but no bold and old pilots, which doesn't make complete sense to me. But why do people slow down? Is it just the age or nature or is it actually something more to it? I think this is a deep question that I've just asked you. That's a tricky question because I'm not a psychologist, and I'm not sure that we all slow down as such. I've

In: always, not always, that's not true. I had one proper accident in paragliding. I've landed in trees and things like that, but it's not true to say I've had one proper one. I've had one where I've hurt myself significantly, although it was only a day or two in hospital, and it's not been life-offering, so I'm very lucky. And that was entirely my fault. It was in my first two or three years of flying when I was doing really well. I was winning the National League at the time. I was properly competitive. I couldn't understand why all these older hang glider pilots, in my opinion at the time, were miserable. They were killjoys. They were always saying, oh, it's too strong, it's too this,

it's too the other. And I'd had a crazy day doing crazy stuff in land. It was very unstable. I don't really want to repeat it. I don't mind repeating it online if other people learn from it, because I think it's really important to be brave and bold and say where you messed up. So I messed up. I was arrogant as hell. I launched in. There were QNIM flags. I didn't get sucked up really high in one, but I'd got in very severely rained on. I was really rough. Anyway, and I managed to land in a sort of small gas front. So I'd had a very adventurous day, and I'd bundled all my

wet gear into the back of my car, trying to dry it out. And I thought, hang on, it's sea breezing, because it was that kind of unstable day on the south coast of the UK where it sea breezes. And I thought, great, I can go to the coast and I can dry my wing out and just soar around with a wet wing, which isn't, of course, advised. That was my thinking. and i got to the coast and the first thing to the launch and it was gusting but it didn't seem too windy i was really excited i hardly assessed the weather and i just bunged my wing out set up set up in seconds this guy i knew quite like

but i always didn't hang on you're a killjoy old hangy play a pilot chap came up eddie it's too windy and i ignored him and i Pulled the glider up and as I turned around, there was a gas front. There was a school line in the water. And I didn't bring the glider down. I got lifted up and then I got a massive caps on launch and managed to stop the glider turning severely. But I basically stalled it in from not terribly high onto a slope and compressed some vertebrae. And so there you go. Your question is, why do people lose weight? Why do people become less reckless as they

go older? There are no old and bold pilots because I'm an old and bold pilot, but I'm less bold than I used to be. I thought I knew it all back then, and I crashed. I've been flying for over 30 years, and I don't know it all. I'm learning all the time. I learn off pilots with huge experience, more experience than myself, and I learn off pilots who are just starting out. A lot of it is psychology, and a lot of it's skill. But your skill is useless if you have bad psychology, because it's the psychology that will kill you. It's always the fault of the human,

really. There's always a decision. There's a bad decision that puts you in danger, and then there's usually two or three more bad decisions that you make, and then you eventually hurt yourself. You've got to learn to make the good decisions. Golden words, Eddie. I love the way you put it in

Aninder: the last sentence that life will give you a few chances before finally getting angrier at you. And I think somebody told me this, that every time the cost of lesson learned becomes heavier, the price that you pay becomes heavier and you have to learn when to finally be real to yourself and make sure that you know when to push back instead of just keeping on. That's an interesting thing, which was I deliberately withdrew from

In: comps at one stage because I didn't like being told what to do. I didn't want to fly a task on some of the days. I didn't want to fly that particular task. I thought it was scary and I'm competitive. I like to win. I like to do well. And I got scared doing the wrong. I don't blame the task setters. It's impossible. a really difficult job. So occasionally the task setters would choose a task and the weather would be wrong for that particular day and you'd end up... Anyway, it was really scary occasionally. Yeah, the other thing is that I've become slightly less of an adventure pilot than I used to be. We were the first people to fly in Hunza and things like that. I did some 180km out and returned there in

2004 and did some 7,800m heights and things like that.

And I'm not that interested in doing that kind of thing so much anymore. Or I am, I love it. But the guiding and the tandems are a great way. It is an adrenaline sport and to get the same adrenaline, you have to keep pushing your personal edge. I've been a bit, I'm not that keen on doing that anymore because I'm mortal, I'm very mortal and I'm very much in love with my life, the things I do and the people that are in it. So I'm keen to do those adventures, but I won't push it to the same degree. I'll fly away from a top landing or I'll fly away from a cold because I'm too

scared. When I started, I had a great degree of ignorance. I didn't see the risks that are over the corner. Now I know more about the risks that are around the corner. And I'm just more cautious with it. I've discovered a way to enjoy it doing guiding and tandems. Usually I'm guiding people with considerably less experience than me when flying tandem pilots. And usually it's our first flight. And each time I parasitically or vicariously experience their thrill. So I'm throwing myself back to being a less experienced pilot and gaining that buzz that they're having. It's great. I think that's a great way for an instructor or a guide to put themselves in where you try and look at the

Aninder: task from your client's eyes, which are less experienced, as you said, and then you basically find the ways to make it fun within their limits.

In: Yeah, I didn't make that very clear. Thank you very much for editing that in that way. Obviously, you don't want to scare the wits out of your customer or your client. But you can have a great parasitic, vicarious thrill by doing something well within your own limits and within theirs. Just out of curiosity, Eddie, how many hours do you have in total? I have less than some people and more than most. I'm sorry to be vague about that. I'm not that great at all my record keeping. But I don't know the exact answer, but probably 6,000 hours. I'm slightly reluctant to put that out there. But if you've been flying for 30 odd years, and let's say just over that time, you've averaged well over 100

hours. I've got at least 3,000 on that basis. And many of those years I've flown three or 400 hours. Fair enough. I don't want to put you in a spot

Aninder: here. So I'm doing a guesstimate. I've got somewhere between 4,000 and 7,000 hours.

What blows me about the numbers, thousands, is that in commercial aviation, thousands of hours come fairly quickly. And the effort required is very different. You just sit in a cockpit, you have a very set flight plan, and then you just rake up hours, like 10 hours every flight or five hours every flight or something. If you treat it as a work, you pretty much rake up hours in three, four years. But in paragliding, on the other hand, hours is a whole different game. Yeah. And back in the day, I've got my first log book, and my first log book has got loads of

In: flights of one minute in it. It's got a few of 15, 20, 30 minutes, and that's coastal soaring flights. And that's the difference. Nowadays, I don't know if you can, if you live in the right country, you can get 150 hours in your first year. Anyone with over 100 hours back in the 90s was a rock star. Wow. Help us understand a little bit about the manufacturing side of it, Eddie. The brands and the equipment back in the day, because

Aninder: hang gliding was an established industry where people were ready to invest money and it made sense for the manufacturers. But paragliding, of course, there were only few pioneer pilots like you and your tribe who were going out and chasing big adventures with these massive cameras. How was the availability of trustworthy gear? And how was the support from the gear manufacturers for pilots like you who were out there making the most out of it and spreading the good word? In the properly early days, just before, you could get wings off manufacturers for

In: trips relatively easily, and they were massively supportive. Companies like Nova were very generous with our first Hunza trips. Manufacturers are keen to help if you've got a good story, but I think it's harder nowadays to get good assistance. I did get some sponsorship. Firebird were very generous to me. Nova were very generous to me. Gin were very generous to me. they were very supportive they still are and there's so many it's so much easier i think nowadays to get really big exposure with all the filmmaking abilities and the internet with the social network there's a lot you can give back to a manufacturer you've got to be able to give something back So back in the

Aninder: day when you guys were chasing all the adventures, what was the usual trick to give back to the companies in return? To give back was stories in

In: magazines, winning competitions, gaining records. Those were the main ways. You had to be super organized to do that. It had to be well written as well. I wasn't too great at that kind of thing. I was an adventurer. If you were super good, there were many more professional pilots employed by manufacturers as opposed to guiding or teaching. I'll tell you the reason why I'm asking this question. That is because

Aninder: often we have seen camera is a bit of a safety hazard and people are ready to push the safety limits to get the perfect shot. Today it's a GoPro or Insta360 which is on a stick and people like to put out the most amazing content or the most viral worthy content. Back in the days, you guys were traveling with cameras, which were as big as the size of a laptop, which was, again, a safety hazard. So my curiosity stemmed from the fact that has the way of taking risk changed over the years when it comes to creating value for somebody who is paying you for it? Or has it been

pretty much the same way people have navigated this, but just that goods have changed and toys have changed, but the human psyche is still the same around it? I think we've got to be real about this. Paragliding attracts risk takers. We've always been risk takers. And also it

In: attracts people who either want to, it's compulsive enough that you want to make it your life and you want to make it your life. You have to seek a way of funding it and funding it means making films. So you'll take those risks. Nowadays, everyone's doing it. I never have a camera. I never have a little camera on my head. And I'd never put a big camera on my head, even if it was possible, because I'm from the school of paragliding where our early comp wings, my early comp wings, I'd expect the wing to collapse. That might remove my helmet. I was at a British paragliding competition where it came on the radio. I've had a big collapse. It ripped my helmet off, but I'm still flying around. I'm

trying to get this turn point. This was Guy Anderson. It came on a radio. The caps were taking people's helmets off back then. Did it not snap

Aninder: people's necks? That is the first thing that comes to mind. If it catches a line of your camera, it's straight away going to impact on your neck instantly as soon as it reopens. I haven't heard of that actually happening, but there have been some inexplicable accidents where

In: people have crashed and it's suspected that The lines have got caught up on a camera. I don't know whether that's actually been proven. You might be able to correct me on that. But it doesn't make good sense to me to fly with a helmet cam. I wonder if there's an opportunity for someone to use what those printers called, where you can print solid objects and maybe design something that went underneath the average hero cam, the average GoPro or Instagram or whatever you call them. I'm not a tech head, as you can tell, but you can get those printers that make solid objects. I imagine there's an opening there for someone to sell that sort of thing through social networks. While we are talking about

Aninder: Chasing Adventures, Eddie, Hunza and Bir and all of these were, of course, pretty amazing sites. But how did the thought of sharing it with others come back in the day? And if you can talk to our listeners about how did that aspect grow and develop into something so meaningful that eventually the whole camaraderie between you and everyone else involved was able to be spread over to a larger audience to whosoever was willing to be a part of it? I was lucky in some respects. I was focusing on being an adventure pilot up until about 2006 or so. I'd done lots of trips

In: to Pakistan, lots of trips to India. I'd been working in Pune. I'd met this wonderful guy called Richard Jones. He'd been an adventure businessman in paragliding in India. He'd been teaching the Pune ashram paragliding and he'd been doing lots of stuff in Goa, getting people high on a line. He'd had a tow syndicate in South Anjuna. He turned up one day when I was in Wales and, um, And he turned up on the hill and he wanted to buy a load of tandems. And then he also said, do you want a job out there? Come and join me. And it was the end of the summer in Wales. The end

of the summer in Wales, if you're a paraglider pilot, is quite a depressing place to be. It's a fantastic place to fly in the summer when the weather is great. It's a very wet part of the country here in the UK. And so I jumped at it. I went out there and I ended up doing two winter seasons in both Pune and Goa. And that got me into India. I hadn't been very familiar with India prior to that at all. I'd never been there. I knew some Indian people, but I hadn't been there. I loved both the people and the country. So I made a point of going back as often as I could. And one

of those times I went with John Sylvester. to Nanda Devi in 2005 when I was working with Brinkley. I met up with Devi Chowdhury, who's a paragliding god in both India and France and elsewhere. Fantastic guy, multilingual, very generous with his knowledge and massively able as a pilot. And he was only a youngster. He was like 15, 16 then. He just started out in flying. And then Bruce Mills, he's another legend from beer. He was really the first Westerner to be there and in the paragliding world. And so I met those guys early on. And then in 2006, I went to Nanda Devi with John. We had a really exciting time, but it was too

exciting for me. We were landing in gorges and having to climb out, and I'm not a great climber. It was properly scary. John was doing some fantastic climbing. very short flights. Each one of them was at huge risk to oneself, and I'd had enough of that. It wasn't what I wanted, and I wasn't a great climber as well. So I was putting myself in even more risk. I couldn't climb out to these places. I didn't have the skills or experience to do that. I was quite an experienced paraglider pilot, but I was a very bad climber. So I chickened out. We had a discussion. John stayed on for a bit. But I got on a bus and I went to beer to meet up with my old friends. I'd only been to beer one time before that and it wasn't in the

flying season and I hadn't flown. And I wanted to go out there. It was a perfect time to go. John was there. Debbie was there. Bruce was there. And loads of people like Mike were there. Antoine, I think, was there. And loads of the old beer heads were there. It was fantastic. Gilles Monnier, who I'd originally met Dan and Pooner as well. He was there. We flew to Kulu on my second day there with Jim and it was super exciting. Since then, I just kept on coming back and I met up with all these guys. I think your original question is how did it develop? It developed because of beer's wonderful season it's a short season which is a pain but it's one of its

great things because it means everyone is there and you meet them all together everyone who loves it so and can has got a flexible enough life that they can they're all there for that season and um and it's such and so it's one of the best places to fly for for people who are interested to involve it it's a fantastic place apart from With respect to the Indians and the huge amount of development that they have, good development that they have achieved, the only downside is you've got to be real. It's a developing country and consequently the emergent and a vast country with difficult terrain. So the rescue services aren't that great. But apart from that, it's the best place that I know of to fly

internationally for those months. A lot of the best people are there. And they're cool. We've known each other for years. If people over a long period of time, and each time you see them, you're having an adventure, then it creates that kind of camaraderie. Landing on top of a mountainside and camping the night and spending it there with friends. It's heaven, in a way. It's one form of heaven. Indeed. And my curiosity

Aninder: stems from the fact that all of you guys out there were pretty much chasing it yourself and then it was you to try and spread that. I think you guys must have been the first ones to offer tours in that region, no? Yeah, I think we weren't the first commercial people out there. But I

In: think we were the first people to do genuine safaris, go and fly, spend nights on the mountain. We weren't the first people to fly to Manali, although I think Debbie was. Debbie and Andy, I believe, were the first people to do that. But we made it more common. We introduced it to people. Rather than it just being the great pilots, the bold, good pilots, it then became something that was achievable. by less bold but good pilots. You had to be good to go. We would guide people conscientiously and try to assess people's genuine skill, maybe bolster their courage a little bit by being there to assist. That was a great thing to do and we did that every year from 2006. Yeah, we've taken many people. Wow, sounds

Aninder: like quite an adventure. But while we're talking about adventure, Eddie, John Sylvester is a name that comes up repeatedly when it comes to big mountain flying. Can you tell our listeners a little bit about John? How was he like and how was he able to pioneer and push the limits and still stay safe and live to tell the tale? Because there are pilots who follow his ideology in today's world as well, but he was doing it when nobody

In: else was to talk about john it's lovely because he was a very special man and a fantastic friend to me and an inspiration he was a brilliant pilot that's the first thing to say he was a very dedicated person he put huge energy into the things he loved he came from a dangerous sports background he was a top climber before so he was aware of risk He made his own risk assessments. He was very responsible about other people. I had to persuade him to guide. Not because he didn't think he was good enough. He just thought it because he recognized the responsibility of the role. So he was a very kind man and not rash and not arrogant with the skill set. He had a classic laugh. He was in different circles. He was known as

the crow or the vulture because Because he was tall and lean and broad-shouldered, so he had that kind of look on the ground with these broad shoulders. When he was standing there, he had a narrow face, so he'd look quite quilline anyway. And then in the air, you know, he'd fly like a crow. He'd do these jerky movements. He had a unique flying style. He could turn it flat in tiny bits and stronger cores. He was remarkable. I always thought it was a good day. It was a special day and quite a rare day when I flew better than him. I was so competitive back then. He must have

found me incredibly annoying, like a crow hassling a vulture. But he was both those creatures and I was some fat, lazy seagull. So yeah, you can tell from that I hold John in huge esteem. He didn't have other jobs that sustained him in paragliding. He lived on a shoestring and paraglided as much as he possibly could in adventurous areas. He treated it very professionally and flew incredibly well.

Aninder: During his time in flying, I think you must have been one of the closest persons to share the airspace with him. Did he reach any roadblocks or any obstacles, be it mentally or physically, that he found difficult to overcome? And if yes, then what was his way of making the most out of any adverse situation? It's quite difficult for me to answer that question for him. He was like the rest of us. He was mortal and How did he... There

In: was one great adventure flight that me and John and Jim, Mike Blubb, and who else was there? I hope I haven't forgotten anyone. We set off to fly to Barabangal. Barabangal was a dream place to fly. No one had flown there. And very few even have now what they have. They've all landed up high in the Barabangal Valley. We were planning on landing down by the village. We took off and we got to the watershed, dividing the Barabangal with Lahadi. And on the day, it was an inverted day. One of the problems with guiding is you tend to do all the guiding in the best part of the season,

and then it gets more and more inverted as the season goes on. And that tends to be the time you can get out there with your mates because you're not busy with your clients. Anyway, we got stymied by that and had to try and break this inversion. All of us, many FAS super experienced pilots, And we were bashing around on this inversion, not managing to break through it. Maybe 50 meters below the watershed. And some of us were getting up to literally four or five meters below the spine that we needed to go over the back. And I just couldn't do it. And John did. And

then he managed. And he was the only one of us who managed to. And he landed down over there and had a great time. And then you're also asking me how he overcame physical issues. The reason why he got into paragliding in the first place. was actually because of a physical issue. He'd been climbing so much. He approached climbing in much the same way as he approached paragliding. He was super determined. And as a result, he had lots of falls and his ankles were in a really bad way. They were shocking to look at. They were massive. I don't know how many times he'd broken his ankles. Consequently, a long walk was always a problem. And that was another way he was so good because he'd also launch really low

because he couldn't walk. He could walk up the top, but it was very painful for him. And he would walk up the top if he had to. But if he thought there was a chance of climbing out lower down, he'd launch from lower down and climb out, which is not necessarily a recommended thing, guys listening, because you don't know what the wind's going to be doing higher up. But someone with John's skill and experience often launch low down and climb out. So that's how he overcame a physical ability and he was just a bit better and a bit more determined. And I think a good pilot

is always someone who works out his risk management strategy and flies within it. If you end up flying outside your risk management strategy, even if it pays off, you're not necessarily a good pilot. You're just a lucky one because a good pilot should stay within his risk management strategy. Certainly if he's a tandem pilot anyway. But he was a comp pilot, so he'd come from that comping background where it was all about achieving the goal. That's a big difference for me. I didn't do that much comping. I was always taught in paragliding, be prepared to abandon the goal if it's putting you at risk. That's the one I maintain, to be honest, because to me, winning is staying alive and experiencing a good life.

It's not necessarily winning the paragliding competition. Wise words Eddie, wise words. I think if everybody else can resonate to this that

Aninder: winning in life is more important than winning it in a flight or in a paragliding competition. It's a very enriching way to make sure you make most of not only the day but also the days to come. You have explored and seen the sport, not exactly from the beginning, but fairly early on. And some of the biggest technical revolutions have happened in your lifespan. So what is next in paragliding, according to you? Oh, gosh.

In: What is next? This lightweight, small package thing, the hike and fly thing will develop a lot more. The versatility of that, of being able to go for walks and enjoy it. It's interesting when I talk to my son's 22 and he's been around paragliding all his life. He thinks that the younger scene is much more interesting to him and that's not comping, not cross country as such. He enjoys it. He's done a bit of it. He's more the acro than the hike and fly. That's the way he sees it. Maybe some military applications, but that's probably going on and we just don't know about it. I know that commercially people use them for dropping equipment, but the actual sport, I think acro and

hike and fly are probably the big expanding areas. The cross-country thing won't get Just more people will be doing it. More people within the sport will be doing it. Whether the sport grows, that discipline itself grows, I don't know. What did the manufacturers say, incidentally? I'm hoping... Most of them are just putting their word where the money is, and understandably so, because even though the sport does seem to be

Aninder: quite expensive for the consumers, the manufacturers also complain that they don't make enough money. So this is more or less like a cash 22, like, who is making money? Is it the big factories who make for different brands or is it the raw material suppliers or is it the ones who are in the middle? Because consumers are definitely paying quite a premium and majority of the manufacturers are seeing a lot of good sales in the mid B section, which is capable of doing fair bit of introductory accro. and does check off quite a list of boxes when it comes to chasing cross-country, but at the same time is also decent for hike and fly. So I think your answer does resonate, but the only concern is that it is being

done on equipment which runs out quickly, like consumer ship economy where you keep on buying new stuff. every now and then, burning money, because wings made for hike and fly don't last as long. But more or less, to answer the question, I think it is hike and fly and AcroArch. A little bit of more dynamic wings, such as the Parakites and Speed wings, if I have to narrow it down. Yeah, I know, that makes sense. Of course, the C&D

In: and Comp wings are always going to have a smaller market. Because certainly in the UK, paragliding takes up a lot of time. Most pilots don't do it for more than, I don't know, six or eight years. The job, the wife, the children, real life or whatever, for many people, those of us who are lucky enough, you have to make a choice how you spend your life. Paragliding is a fantastic thing to do, but it takes up, to get to a great level and to maintain it safely takes a long time. So to have a market for those higher-rated wings, there's going to be less people that can get

to that level and stay at that level and regularly fly at that level. Of course, the lower-rated wings would do much better because they suit both the pilot that is only occasional but has been doing it for many years, and they suit the younger, keener, when I say younger, younger in terms of pilot, the guy that's doing it, the guy and the girls that are doing it with all that enthusiasm of, gaining your first thousand or so hours, because I was completely compulsive from those times. For me, the paragliding in the air hasn't been the most dangerous thing, actually. Jokingly and seriously, I was more risk on the road on a good day than I would have been in the sky, because I would have found it so

difficult to drive a car without staring at the bloody sky. That degree of addiction.

Aninder: Oh, geez, you put it very beautifully. You're not alone in this one, man. We all do feel the same challenges on a good day. Funny. Yeah, but I think

In: that this sport's not going to go away. Because of that addiction, that enthusiasm, the manufacturers of it too, that's why they've gone into this difficult and risky industry. I know the A-Zone team quite well, and they love it. They're not going to give up, and I'm sure that's true of all the manufacturers, particularly the smaller manufacturers, because they're the guys having the rougher ride. Definitely very enthusiastic. I'm so glad you mentioned Ozone. I wanted to talk a little bit about Ozone, because I think, were they starting after you guys

Aninder: started paragliding, or were they before you got in the sport? Yeah, they started up. The business itself started after I started

In: paragliding. We were at a British competition in the Lake District, and ozone will correct me but i think it was probably in 96 when they started

Aninder: tell us a little bit about ozone how did the early days look of one of the grandest brand in the history of paragliding that is what i'm curious about from an industry outsider because obviously i can talk to a lot of people who are paid and on the payroll of ozone who would love to bring in their insights but from a spectator's point of view who has seen the brand from its inception to what it is now this As far as I'm aware, this

In: Lake District competition that I was at, there was quite a lot of chat between Mike Kavanagh, Dave Pilkington, Steve Senior, Russell Ogden, Bruce Goldsmith, Robbie Whittle, and Mark Taggart. They were all there at this comp. There was a lot of chit-chat going on. And Ozone was born. Half those guys were previously employed by... Robbie was part of Airwave. Bruce was part of Airwave. who else on that team was part of it and anyway that's how it was born it was a wet windy typical british nationals competition of the 90s i don't think we did a huge amount of flying most of us were down the pub and these guys were gathered together and then ozone was born and they're very kind to me I've been flying Ozone

equipment since about 2000 or so. The reason why I got curious is because a lot of brands have come and gone over the period of time, but they seem to

Aninder: have done a lot of things right and solidified their positions as time passed, be it picking the people they're collaborating with or bringing out new technologies or investing in the R&D. So that is what makes me curious about Ozone, that how did a legacy brand, which was pioneering at the time of its inception, play its card right and stay true to the competition and still win where it mattered the most? They

In: all love it. It's true of all the other manufacturers too. They're just a great team, I assume. Huge skills. And I know that they, I think it's their own factory, isn't it? That David Pilkington runs in Vietnam. And I think that they also manufacture other people's. They've obviously got a great business model and a great team. I know that Mike Kavanagh is probably a super manager and clearly he's got his fingers on the buttons in terms of the numbers, making sure that it's financially viable as well. But... The proof is in the pudding, isn't it? They have maintained a very good market lead for quite a long time now. They've also created some huge technological advantages like the shark's nose. I think they

might have been the first to do all the diagonal ribs. I can't remember all the advantages they've made, but consistently their wings are great to fly. And they fit my weight range well, which is handy. Although they don't on their lightweight wings. So I'm always having to fly one of the full weight winds. Fair enough, Eddie. Thank you for your politically correct answer, which is very well thought of.

Aninder: Love your neutral, unbiased stance on such a question. They've maintained their market lead. If you look at the comps, despite the huge

In: efforts and abilities of Niviuk and Gin and other manufacturers, Ozone, Niviuk and Gin seem to have We've ozone noticeably in the lead in terms of the top scorers. They've tended to be ozone over the years. Fair enough. Eddie, before we wrap up, as from probably last time, there's a

Aninder: tradition where you share one amazing flight from your life. But the reason I'm asking you this is that you have been kind enough to share the Bara Bengal flight to our audiences last time around as well. Yeah. But anything else, something new for audiences this time around? Yes.

In: Okay. I've got loads of epic memorable flights and it's hard to choose one because there have been loads of them. But earlier you were asking me about John and what gave him the edge and stuff. I'd like to share two in a way, but I'll try and do one where John flew down the Chogo Longmore Glacier, which is like... Again, I'm doing this from memory, so I may be wrong on my numbers. From the Golden Peak or Spantic, they're both the same peak. And that amazing 7,000...

God knows how big it is. 7,600 meters or over 7,000 meters tall. It's massive. And it's got these amazing bedding panes, vertical bedding panes, and snow all over it. And it's got this coal... which is a bit lower, but still well over seven, I think. And it's near the Hispa and the Baltaro glacier, which are the biggest ice fields in the, which aren't on the poles. This big terrain. And John talked about this flight and he said, he's going to go over Spantik and gosh, yeah, there's so many flights where John pushed it just a bit further than me. It's bringing up a memory of another one. And anyways, we took off to do this flight. And I was climbing while John was doing his normal thing, where I was high and

John was low. I was up there at 7,000 meters or something, and John was lower, following the spine up to the spantic. He was probably only at 5,500 meters. I was well above him. I was finding it very hard to see him, but I was trailing him from above. And I got to the top of Spantic and I looked, I looked, I just looked and there was just snow everywhere, not a value system in sight that would have a road system track or Jeep system on it. And I carried on a different way. I went down into the Hispa Glacier where you can see K2 from there. But John didn't. I just saw this little

glider go over the back Hispanic and carry on. And I did this lovely little loop, ran into the glacier and landed at the foot of the glacier in this tiny place called Hispa. I had this epic hitch out of Hispa on a tractor across scree slopes, moving scree. That was really terrifying, but exciting. I got back to Karimabad and then heard John's story about how he managed to milk his way down this glacier, a lot of it only 50 meters above the ground, above the ice rather than the ground. 50 meters. Yeah, 50 meters. He was getting one little climb after the next little climb after the next, managed to persevere and get down. pretty close to skardu close enough to easily get a vehicle to skardu i was

pleased that i hadn't done that flight quite honestly because i know that i would have shifted so i would have been really scared if i'd ever landed out there i would have found it very hard to walk out from so i'm quite happy john took it but i'm quite happy to give it in the sense that i to not try and take it myself i think that was a shrewd move i might not survive the journey But then it tells me just because I want to big myself up a little bit rather than just constantly picking it up. No, but I want to reassure you, I did another flight on that same trip where I flew about

100k westward, of which at all times I could vaguely see a Jeep track. I always knew the instructor and I taught so many people to always know that you had a way out. and up there is me not being a massive mountain man not knowing how to negotiate a glacier how to negotiate crevasses i do know a bit about this sort of thing nowadays but back then i didn't know anything but having enough respect and fear of the terrain not to want to risk landing in it i was high enough up to do that trip and then i flew back flying back was amazing because i was in orbit all the time over six

thousand meters and some of it over seven thousand And it seemed to get better as the day got on. And I think at 7,000 meters, I was up there. And the day was coming to a close. I realized this. And my caution of not wanting to land out in unfamiliar territory in this kind of big terrain, I was keen to make goal, keen to get back to Karimnabad in this instance. In a known landing field, there was this lovely sort of beach you could land at beside the river. I was milking out the length of the day. It was just so funny because elementary kind of mistake. And it was all the

eagerness. And the valleys are so steep there and the sun and the mountains are so tall that up and your elevation is so great that it's bright sunlight up there. But as I got into the valley and as I looked down as well, I could see the valleys were falling into shadow and all faces, even the west faces were falling into shadow. And it was like, okay, so yeah, it's the days dragging on. But then maybe I was a bit hypoxic, but it was suddenly the obvious thing clicked. It was like, shit. It's actually getting dark down there. I'm in sunlight because I'm so bloody high up. And by then, there weren't the good landing options, particularly. So I had to just blast it towards this known landing area

at that height. So I did. So I blasted it as fast as I could to get there. And I didn't quite make it. I had to do one of the most dangerous landings of my life, but perfectly. But anyway, so that was a 200k out in return, landing in the dark in 2001,

I think. Jeez, Eddie, you seem to have lived a life full of adventure worth sharing. That landing, I just want to say about that landing, it was extraordinary. I landed on the top of the gully bridge. There was a gully and just half a K there was the beach. There was a danger I wasn't going to make the beach and I was going to end up in the gully. So I had to put it in on the top of the gully. There was a sort of zero wind landing on the top of the gully and the sort of four meter wide area and then a stone wall. I didn't have the height to clear the stone wall. So I had to land on the

four meter wide area and grab the stone wall and the wing fell behind me and fell into the gully. He was only a foot or two down, but the gully was made in moraine, glacial moraine, so it was lots of loose rock just stacked on top of each other. I was concerned that a rock could fall off the edge of the cliff onto the wing and pull me over. It was memorable. Memorable, exciting, scary, all in one go. Yeah. i wish this was a video

Aninder: forecast man i really need to get my game up because the way you were explaining the last few were quite interesting to see and i'm not sure if our audiences can visualize this in the audio only format but yeah um despite my red face

Yes, just for your info, if you're wondering, Eddie seems to be a bit more red than white from what I usually know him off. And I don't know why UK is not having an Indian, which means red Eddie. Indeed. So Eddie Lal is the avatar that we got you this time around on Paragliding Atlas. Before we wrap up, I believe you are planning to share these stories and more awesomeness, your followers in a tour. Would you like to speak about that before we close? Yeah, I do talks occasionally. I'm just doing a talk locally because I've been asked to for just 30 years of

In: paragliding. And I hope, and this is convenient. This is great. This is part of hopefully bringing that on board. It's a training session partly for me. to share this first with you. That talk will have slides and things. The other thing I wanted to share is the one thing about beer problematic, apart from the crowding, is the mountain rescue facilities. And despite the massive efforts of the local people, they're good grand crews that would get people out of trees from all sorts of extraordinary places. And they'll walk in, they'll walk through the night to try and get to the pilots in trouble and carry them down. There are brave and able helicopter pilots, but there's no

dedicated helicopter rescue system. And the helicopter pilots aren't necessarily there. They're quite often a long flight away and can't get there the same day. And sometimes they can't get there for two or three days. So we are exploring the idea of tandem rescue. And if anyone thinks they may be able to help me in that, we're developing a stretcher. and we're seeking insurance so that me and other extremely qualified and able pilots can assist people in the beer area by doing some of the rescues by tandem, the ones that we can get to. The incidents do generally occur top landing, so we hope that we could get to many of them because if people are trying to top land, it's theoretically possible.

And hopefully we will be able to assist. It's pioneering again. We're pioneering a new field, and that field is the field of rescue. And so if anyone out there has the professional skills, contacts within the insurance industry, if anyone feels they're able to assist in that, please feel free to send me a message. It would be great to hear from you. Indeed, Eddie, and the more the merrier and such a good cause, I would

Aninder: say. So what we're going to do is we're going to put out all your details along with the YouTube videos and your contact information in the show notes. So what I hope is that if there's anybody in the audience is from wherever part of the world, you're joining us in 75 countries and counting. It's quite a diverse and wide audience base that we have spread. If there's any way you can contribute to this cause, please, now is the time because you're not only making the sport a better and safer place for yourself, but also for everybody else in the community. And people like Eddie time and again remind us that creating shared value is the way to go. And if we can be a part of the bandwagon, then there's

nothing more rewarding and more fulfilling in life, I would say. Thank you, Ananda. That's very kind of you. On that note, Eddie, it's very kind of you to come back on the show and share unfiltered and honest versions of your experiences. All I can say is, until next time, it's been an absolute honour and a pleasure. Thanks, man. Great.