Helmet Safety : Christian Ciech : ICARO 2000

Aninder: What's up pilots across the world? Welcome back to a very special episode of the fastest growing show in the sport of paragliding. Yes, it's been one whole long year since you guys have shown unconditional love. From regions as far north up as Greenland and islands as far out remote as Mauritius, you guys have made it count when it mattered. So needless to say, a massive thanks from the bottom of my heart to all of you out there who tune in regularly to get your weekly dose of all things paragliding in here. And if you happen to be one of those who loves what they're listening to, please do consider liking, subscribing and sharing. Together we can help spread the knowledge to a wider audience

and make the sport even more fulfilling in all its aspects of awesomeness.

so happy birthday paragliding atlas once again what an incredible journey it has been so far and the best part is that the stoke to create magic is just getting started that means you should stay tuned for all the awesomeness that is coming your way in 2025 and beyond

but for now without further ado i think it's time to tune in for the topic of the day which happens to be helmet safety

You know, a couple of things came to my mind when I was choosing this topic. The first one, fair and simple, helmets protect the endorphin-making factory up there, and that one's kind of a non-negotiable. You know, you need endorphins in your life, that's why you need brain, and that's why you need helmets. And the second reason is that we often don't talk about it enough. I mean, we see all kinds of gear reviews and flights and videos and all kinds of content out there being put for multiple aspects in paragliding. However, I think helmets get neglected a lot and this is one tiny attempt at solving that problem. So this episode promises to kill your curiosity about all that you have

ever wondered about paragliding helmets and if somehow we seem to have missed out on what you might have wanted to listen, feel free to drop an email and we will be sure to follow it up with utmost professionalism. Anyways, without further ado, diving right into the episode, helmet safety with a legacy brand in paragliding, Ikaru2000, narrated by one of the pioneering legends of the sport of hang gliding, none other than Christian Cech. Tune in and I hope you like it.

Christian, what an absolute honor to have you on Paragliding Atlas, man. Thank you so much for coming. Thank you for inviting me. Christian, I'm just wondering, you have been associated with Icaro 2000, one of the foremost and leading brands in helmet protection technology in the sport of paragliding. Can you tell our audiences a little bit about yourself? This show is all about paragliding and a lot of people are not so well versed with hang gliding. We know that you have conquered the world of hang gliding time and again, but just a little bit of an introduction about you and the company that you work for. So I work for Icaro since 2001, and I'm a test pilot for hang glider, also designing.

Christian Ciech: Lately, I'm also involved in the helmet production, let's say, because we, Icaro 2000, produce hang gliders, but also free-flight helmets. And now we are extending our market, our production also for other sports like ski, bicycle, and possibly also for aviation, but it's going to be late in the future. We are trying to expand our market. Got it. I was just wondering out of curiosity that helmets, when it comes to

Aninder: manufacturing and kind of designing, we have a lot of brands in the sport of free flight that are into other equipment, such as making the wings themselves or making the harnesses or the accessories. But when it comes to something as important as Helmet, Icaro pretty much has a market monopoly and there are very few competitors which barely even come close. Do you have any idea why this market is so niche and why so few people try to venture into it? We started the helmet productions several years ago. It should be around 20 years ago. But yes, the market

Christian Ciech: is not so big because if we compare paragliders or handgliders, especially handgliders, to other activities like motorbike or bicycle, numbers are much lower. So the helmet producers are not so interested in that market. It's a very small quantity compared to the hundreds of thousands or millions of helmets that other producers make. I see. So basically, helmet production itself is complicated.

Aninder: And even though, let's say, the whole sport of paragliding, there are quite a number of pilots where we have multiple brands selling multiple categories of wings. And same goes for harnesses. But when it comes to helmet, is it the complicacy or the cost of the R&D involved which kind of keeps people away and getting into this business? Is that what you're saying? Yes. When developing a new helmet, it takes a lot of time, a lot of

Christian Ciech: costs. And if we want to supply good quality helmets, high- end, these costs are very high. And I cannot give you a good answer because I'm not in a factory that produces motorbike helmets. but yes for us it is interesting we like to develop this helmet because it's part of our passion let's say because we are passionate for free flight and we want to get people with safe and good quality equipment this is probably why we start to produce helmets and maybe for who doesn't know these parts this market is not so interesting Just out of curiosity, since you have

Aninder: seen Icaro and you've been with Icaro for quite some time, how did the transition of a hang gliding brand get into helmet production? Because as you explained earlier, that helmet is not the biggest market. You're not in it for money. You are there simply for the passion. So how was it that Icaro 2000 as a brand decided that from fixed wing aircraft, so we're going to go into protecting the heads of the pilots as well? It was

Christian Ciech: an idea of the boss, Gianni Otz. He was really interested in that. At the beginning, let's say that the Anglider was, as you say, was doing the helmet market. And now we could say that both markets are at the same level, let's say, and sometimes are the helmets that join the Anglider. So mostly we started this business because Gianni was a passionate on that. And so we are here. Do you remember how did the helmets look like

Aninder: before you guys entered the market? What were people using to protect their heads? Or were they even using anything at all? If we start much

Christian Ciech: before when Icarus started to produce the helmets, I would say when my father started to fly with the hang glider, helmets were not used at all, let's say, because most of the pilots of that time, they were thinking that if you fall from the sky, you don't need a helmet. Nothing will save you. They were flying also without a parachute because at the beginning, there was a way to say that you have to fly as high as you are able to jump down. They were flying so low that they couldn't do a parachute and get safe from that because they were too low. Anyway, they thought that the helmet was something that they don't need. On more recent time, helmets were, let's say, too stiff to be good. Because, as

you probably know, the helmets don't need to be completely stiff, because otherwise the energy of the impact will reach your head. So at the beginning, the outer shell were thick and stiff, and the polystyrene, P.S., what we call in Italian polystyrologue, It is used to absorb the energy. And on that time, it was too thin to protect very well the head. Yes, on that time, the helmets were not as good as today. So

Aninder: basically, there was a demand from the market to have, first of all, some sense of security that having something on your head is better than having nothing. Then adding these materials and try to put R&D is what got Icaro into it, if I'm not wrong. Yeah, that's true. And then we

Christian Ciech: realized, people realized that helmets are useful to protect from, let's say, relatively low speed. That means that we use the helmet in pre-flight to protect our head from ground impact or rocks impacts. Or on a glider, we use the helmets to protect from impact against the frame. That's the meaning of wearing a helmet. Let's talk a little bit about the certification, because as you mentioned earlier, the materials were

Aninder: very stiff or they were not advanced enough for people to really make use of helmets. How did we eventually evolve as an industry towards the EN norms and what exactly is the certification today? Because I was checking out, I keep on looking at your website and I see there are videos of certification tests being carried out. So what are these certifications and how did they come into the picture in helmet technology? I remember when I was competing at the beginning of my career and we could use any kind of helmet. There was not the request from

Christian Ciech: organization or even the FIA federation. There was not the request of wearing a certified helmet. But that means that pilots were wearing helmets that were useless. So we were one of the actors that pushed to get a certified helmet into the field. And HEN 966 is the certification, the standard used for free-flight helmets. And this certification required a certain volume of polystyrene, a certain thickness of the outer shell, and the correct chin strap to avoid that the helmet would fall from the ground when you get an impact. to get into the object for the certification is a certain type of acceleration, acceptable acceleration that your helmet can support. And you have to protect you

also against objects that could penetrate the shell, the outer shell and the helmet, and a certain resistance of the chain strap. And altogether, the helmet should not fall from your head in any case. So if I have to sum it up, you're telling me that the thickness of the protective

Aninder: material, which was polyethylene or something that you were saying, that has to be of certain limit. And then the shell has to be resistant to penetrations from objects. And the chin strap has to have a resistance before giving away. These three form factors make EN 966 certification for air spools. Yes, and the helmet falls from a certain height, that is 1.5 meters. The acceleration that the head form places into the helmet

Christian Ciech: during this test should register less than 250 G. And the lower the acceleration inside the helmet during this test, the better the helmet. And when you exceed this acceleration, then the helmet is failing the test. And then about the penetration, there is a certain weight with a cuneiform shape that falls against the helmet. And the cuneiform part of the weight must stay at least 5 millimeters away from the head form. And this kind of impact tests are made with the helmet in an amniotic condition. but they are made also with the conditioning of the helmets at minus 20 and plus 50 degrees plus they're gonna be also ultraviolet and water conditioning So there is a very wide range of

tests made on the helmets for this certification. Got it. Let's compare EN 966 Norm to a usual motorcycle helmet. Anybody growing up in the world

Aninder: is first exposed to motorcycle helmets where we see people riding them and using them to protect our heads. So let's start with motorcycle helmets. Motorcycle helmets are heavy, robust, and are much more protective, at least visually. What is the usual difference between motorcycle ones and the air sports one? And if they offer more protection, why can't we just simply use them in aerial sports as well?

Christian Ciech: We don't use motorcycle helmets because, as you said, they are much more heavy. It is true that they protect much more because who is riding a bicycle is more often exposed to very high energy impacts. On hand glider, we could never fly with a motorcycle helmet because it's so heavy that after a few minutes of flying, your neck will be painful. So you couldn't fly with that helmet. That's different for a paraglider that you can wear a much heavier helmet because the position is better. But motorcycle helmets has another feature that is not good for us. It means the field of vision is much smaller. But field of vision is something that on a motorbike you don't need much because you have to see

in front of you and a little bit laterally. When crossing the road, you turn your head on one side or the other. But I'm sorry, when you are riding a bicycle straight on the road, you just need a very small angle to have a view of the angle. On a glider, we need a very wide field of vision because we need it laterally and also vertically. So that's a very important point for fleet flight timelines. We can't use motorbike helmets for flying. They are much safer passively, let's say, but actively they are much worse. Makes sense. Makes sense. Let's say paragliders. I have

Aninder: flown with a motorcycle helmet at some point in time, and I flew with a half-face helmet where it does not block your field of vision like a full-face one. If fatigue is not a problem, are we looking at having motorcycle helmets being much more safer than the current norms of EN 966? Is that correct when it comes to safety, if we take away the requirement of weight and comfort? It makes sense. If you have a

Christian Ciech: motorbike helmet that has a bigger field of vision and fatigue is not a problem, then it could make sense. But we must be aware that the example for paraglider and the certification EN 1906 require these requirements. It's the object around the helmet must be smaller than five millimeters. Any object on the outer shell can protrude from the outer shell only by 5 mm no more. Otherwise, there could be a problem of entanglement with some of the paragliders, and they could be also a percussive, let's say, object in case of a crash. That makes so much

Aninder: sense. Thank you for explaining that, because obviously safety-wise, motorcycle helmets protect much more. But as you were saying, the extra construction of motorcycle helmets where there are so many other things that are attached which could get entangled could possibly become a hazardous scenario. Before I move on, Christian, I want to talk a little about skiing helmets and let's say, we can come back to skiing helmets later, but let's talk about bicycling helmets where there are a very thin, what do you say, something like a polyesterene or some kind of material which the helmets are made of. And oftentimes you've seen hike and fly pilots use similar helmets. Are they also able to have EN 966

certification? Because it does not make sense to me that it will have holes in the upper shell because of air ventilation. And yet they are being widely used, or let's say climbing helmets. They are being widely used in hike and fly in our sport. So anybody who's using those helmets, are they deviating EN 966 norms? And is that a lot less safer than the usual free flight helmets that are being offered on the market? Maybe I

Christian Ciech: don't get all the words you say, but if you think bicycle helmets, the big holes for ventilation, those holes are very far away from what the EN966 requires. There is no way that the helmet can protect you from penetration. If you try the penetration test on that point, you can do it because it's easy to to fall, let's say, and get us inside this hole, you will not pass the test at all. You get injury for sure. So they are very good for ventilation when you are hiking, but when you are flying, or especially if you have a crash, the thermal will not protect you enough.

They will not meet the 966 standards. Yeah, the reason why I ask this question is hike and fly athletes use a lot of helmets which have

Aninder: ventilation. So all of these use case scenarios of helmets with ventilations are effectively not EN 966 certified and they are just improvisation to be a part of this kind of, to be a part of, to just have some protection on the head than nothing. Yes, ventilation is good and

Christian Ciech: we work for ventilation also in our helmets. But we can't have an open shell like on the bicycle. Shell can have some higher intakes, but they can't be as big as on bike helmets, for sure. And if you look at the bike helmets in the market, they also have very often, they have very sharp edges and they are not very, how you say, they cannot match the needs of a smooth shell to, to, sorry, to not get the lines tangled into these sharp edges. So no, bicycle helmets are not the helmets we need for flying. Before I move on to the technology part, I'm very curious about the field

Aninder: of view, because oftentimes I have seen some schools teaching new beginner pilots with full face helmets, which basically offer chin protection as well. And the explanation for that is that if you fall face front, then you're protected all the way. When you're starting the sport, it's almost impossible to not be nervous enough to look around visually because you want to see how the wing is and how your surroundings are because you're absorbing this new way of moving through the air. So field of view is super important in our sport. Are half face helmets much better in the beginning until you get good enough to move on to full face helmets in the sport? What is your take on that? I do

Christian Ciech: not agree with you about the fact that a beginner has the need of a very big field of vision. Because when we are very concentrated or too concentrated, where we are a little bit scared from the new emotion that we are living, field of vision became smaller. We cannot see what happened around us. We just see what happened in front of us. So that's at the beginning of our career. We probably don't need a big field of vision. And the full-face helmet will protect us better. At the same time, I have some consideration about the full-face helmet because lately I met a pilot that likely had a bad accident and I'm not sure where the helmet gets stuck, the chin protection gets stuck and the chin

protection practically rotates his head and he breaks his neck. So I don't know which helmet he was wearing. And as I said, I'm not sure about where the helmet gets stuck, the chin protection gets stuck. But speaking about full face helmet, I guess the chin protection must be quite close to the face, not too far away. As you said, field of vision is important, even if I guess it's not so important at the beginning of the surgery. the practice but it's important to get quite close to the face to reduce the possibility of creating a big momentum on your neck. Hood face aimers are better for protection but the chin protection must be quite wide to avoid that they get stuck in the branches of trees and on

soft terrain so they must be quite wide and close to the face. Makes sense. Let's talk about intermediate pilots. This is the time when

Aninder: you're starting to fly in goggles. This is the time when you're starting to scratch close to the trees. This is the time basically when you are learning how to push your limits after the first 20, 30 or 50 hours. I just don't feel very comfortable scratching close to the trees with a full-face helmet because I have to move a lot more. When can a pilot move on from a half-face to a full-face or let's say you have to invest money and paragliding is an expensive sport. What should you prioritize investing your money on? Is half-faced helmet good to start with or is full-face helmet good to start with or should you just go ahead and try and see what kind of makes you more happy in the air basically? Yeah, what

Christian Ciech: I can say is that a full-face helmet is probably, not probably, it is more safe, passively, and the open-face helmet is probably more safe actively. The choice between one and the other is very personal. I cannot say you have to choose this, you have to choose the other one. As we see, there are many very expert pilots, competition pilots, that are choosing full-face helmets. They are not doing this for a better protection, but they are doing it because they are more aerodynamic and they are integrated into the harness. I guess sometimes they make this choice for this reason. So as I said, I cannot say what is better for

you, but if you feel more confident and more comfortable to fly with an open face helmet, then that's the choice for you. I also fly with an open face helmet because I don't feel comfortable to get my chin protection very close to the speed bar, the control bar. And so that's my choice. In

Aninder: case any of our audience is wondering, Christian is talking about flying hang glider. So that is where the chin goes close to the control bar. I think we have covered a lot of points about the helmet design. I want to move on to the technologies behind designing and developing of helmets. So can you please talk to our audiences about how does a helmet get designed? What is, let's say you had a really successful project about Nero Hero. I don't know if I'm saying it correctly, but it's one of the most cool looking helmets, the coolest looking helmet on the market for all sports of free flight. How do you start a project and how do you get on with it? What is the background? What is the background information?

Christian Ciech: We have two very good people on that. One is Ignazio Bernardi, that is our, let's say, graphic designer. And the other one is Manzoni Calice, is one of the modelers, one of the last, let's say, modelers in Italy, that is developing helmets starting from a hand project, working with the hands instead of working with the computer. They are the, let's say, the designer of the helmet, and the Manzoni is also a specialist about safety and protection that the helmet has to supply. So it's, how you say, a meeting, sorry, a teamwork that produces the design of the helmet. Is there some science which goes behind designing a helmet? Like, how do you choose that this helmet has to look more sleeker or more

Aninder: rounder? When we look at the inventory of Icaro, there are multiple designs available. How do you guys figure out to zone in on a design? I understand designers can throw more light on this, but you as someone just from outside, how do you think they work? If you can just give us, give our audiences a little bit of information into their workings. How do you make a design? How do you decide the design? It's a teamwork.

Christian Ciech: Ignazio has a very good eye to look around in different fields and then he brings his idea to Manzoni and Manzoni develops the idea into a first model. and then when the looking of the the helmet it's what the Inazzi wants then the Manzoni realized that the final prototype and then the model came into the 3D scanner and then we realized the computer model and then from that we realized the mode to print the helmets. Makes

Aninder: sense. When it comes to imparting technologies, we see a lot of other helmets bringing in MIPS. MIPS is one of the leading technologies in ski helmets and cycling helmets. Do you also have something like that in mind when you talk about helmets or bringing a new project in the helmet market? At the moment, no. MIPS seems something that has a very good advertisement. We believe that it could be better for rotational

Christian Ciech: protection because that is not something that is required on AN966. Impact test on AN966 doesn't check, doesn't control if there is a certain rotational acceleration on the head form. So it is not required, let's say, for the certification standard, what we are thinking about. But yes, it seems that MIPS creates less rotational acceleration, but on the same moment, probably,

it will increase the rate of falling from the head when testing on that way. I'm very curious about another thing which is mostly used in

Aninder: professional aviation where heads-up displays are making a big contribution to the flight. We usually see in military applications where fixed-wing pilots or chopper pilots are using heads- up displays and I think recently I do not remember the name of that brand but I think it was Syride or something else which came out with these glasses which show your speed and vertical range. So Are we looking at helmets getting smarter in time to come as well? And is there any kind of work being done by Icaro in trying integrating these things into helmet to make them fancier and better for the... We're thinking about because most of our helmets have the possibility to install the visor. We think the visor is

Christian Ciech: very good features for flying because compared to normal glasses, they open your vision. You have a bigger field of vision. And it could be something that we could implement on the visor to get some data for the flight. Another good feature that the smart helmets has is the possibility to make an emergency call if the acceleration of the helmet is too big. That could be a good tool. I don't think cameras or lights are necessarily on our helmets, but the rest could be interesting. We have to keep an eye to the weight of the element. It's easy for us. So glad you

Aninder: mentioned something about the visors because I'm just very curious about visor maintenance because no matter how hard you try, visor eventually gets scratched up and the visibility and the clarity is reduced over a period of time. And having glass visors does not make sense for obvious reasons. When we look at these high intensity sports such as Formula One or MotoGP and all of those guys who are having these helmets, they seem to have super clear visors all the time. Is there a certain way we as free flight pilots can have really clear visor vision? And what is the best way to have visors giving us the clear view of the sky? Because I think that matters a lot when you fly in the quality of the

flight eventually. I don't know if you were speaking about the old anti-fog visor we were using. At a certain point we introduced the

Christian Ciech: anti-fog layer inside of our visors and we discovered that it was very sensible to any type of cleaning operation and very easily get damaged and then you will get terrible vision inside and outside the safe. and so that was not good for the vision because at the same time on the outside of the visor there is the anti-scratch treatment so the outside normally is quite good while with the old anti-fog it was not so good now we are using only anti-scratch visor on the outside nothing inside but we are testing a new anti-fog for the inside And that could be the key of the solution, let's say, for that. I noticed that some colors are better than the others. For instance, I prefer the brown visor that creates

less, you say, light diffusion and a better contrast in any kind of type of light and direction. The blue creates some light diffusion on the visor. When you are flying or you are looking, against the sun or with the sun that hit your visor, the contrast is not so nice. You also have to think that cost is factor. And sometimes a visor made with printed injection will cost much more than a visor made with thermoforming process. Makes sense. I'm not sure those technical terms are very easily to the audience. But how do you make a visor? What is the process

Aninder: that goes behind making a visor and what materials are being used in that? There are practically two processes. One is the thermoforming

Christian Ciech: process of a layer of a sheet of polycarbonate, and the other one is to inject the material into a mold. The injection molded visors are much more expensive at the beginning because you have to pay the mold, and the mold costs a lot, while the visor itself costs much less. Because the number of free-flight elements are not so big, Normally, we cannot afford the investment for visor molds, even because if we want to change the model of the helmet or we want to renew a model and change the visor, a new mold will cost a lot. Makes sense. While we're talking about add-ons

Aninder: in the visor and the helmets and everything around it, I'm just wondering, I came across this recommendation on your website at a certain point which said that helmets, as a rule, have to be changed after every five years, regardless of whether they are having some damage or some impact or not. Could you please explain how exactly can people evaluate that and should they be changed every five years out of care for them? We see, I make you an example, we make a hang glider check here and several times we see gliders that are supposed to be in good

Christian Ciech: condition from the owner and they are not. We discovered that there is a deformation in the tubes or the sail is not in the condition it should supposed to be. The five-year replacement of the helmet is not mandatory. If you keep your helmet in a very good condition, you don't let the helmet fall on the ground, you don't have any crash, then you can keep the helmet longer. But as I said, sometimes the owner of the equipment doesn't know the condition of the equipment itself. So that's the recommendation we make for you. Is there a way to

Aninder: self-evaluate your helmet's condition? Can you take a microscope and look at it, or is there some other way where you can figure out that, all right, now is the time to change? No, we don't make any microscope analysis, but sometimes when there is a crash of a certain importance,

Christian Ciech: you can have a visual check that will discover the problem. Not for minor impact, let's say, but for a certain type of impact. If you crash on the ground with 2.5 mps of speed, you can really see some damage, especially on the new helmets where we increased the volume and the thickness of the polystyrene, the inner backliner. If you take this new helmet, the polystyrene is softer. It's softer because the thickness is more, and you can have a better protection with a softer impact liner. And on this impact liner, if you try to press with your finger, you will see that you can deform the polystyrene. It will offer a better protection compared to old helmets, but if you don't take care of that... Let me give you

another example. We recently tested and certified the Nevo helmet, a new helmet that will appear in the market right now. And with this helmet we get the highest impact protection. The maximum acceleration we registered during the impact test was 170 or 180 G, so much lower than required.

But this helmet has an impact liner with a lower density. And if you try to deform with your fingertip, you can do it. Interesting. For your head, it's better. How dangerous it is to put an action cam mount on your helmet in real life scenarios?

We don't have any... real experiments that say that these action cameras are not safe. But for sure, if you imagine that your line gets entangled into the webcam, that's not a very good thing. And also, if you crash your helmet where the camera is placed, you can damage the outer shell. It will damage your helmet, if not your head. As I said, we don't have any practical tests. We didn't make anything about that. But if we think about that, it is easy to understand that an action camera can be dangerous for your head, at least for your helmet, and then also for your head. Do you think there could possibly be helmets in future which could have action camera mounts integrated into them so that the

Aninder: certification process can go through without having to install any external mounts? Because I think that will solve this industry problem big time. Because regardless, all of us love our videos. We want to share it with our friends and family from the sky. And we end up, I think 90% of the flyers out there end up putting some kind of mount or the other at some point in time in their career on the helmets. So maybe, I think, don't you think working towards a helmet which has an integrated mount will be helpful in this regard? Smart helmets are already did in this way. So,

Christian Ciech: helmets of this type already exist. Actually, they are made only for motorbike. We don't have, at the moment, they are not in the pre-flight market. It could be a solution. We have to always say that we have to deal with the weight and the integration in a smaller, let's say, and thinner thickness. As I say, the new helmets have a bigger thickness compared to the old one, but we are not at the level of motorbike helmets. Not yet. As

Aninder: we are close to wrapping up the show, I just want to quickly touch upon your inventory of helmets. There's a brand new helmet with the name of Nivo coming out with a whole level of protection. But I also see that you guys are into making helicopter helmets and some other helmets like Carbon X and Gua. And then, of course, you have the flagship from Nero Hero. So what are the usual differences between these helmets, let's say the Procopter and the Nevo helmet? And can they be interchanged in the sports? Can paraglider pilots also try a Procopter helmet? Because let's say if it looks cool, or is it specifically meant for its own purpose in the sport that it is? So far, we don't produce helicopter

Christian Ciech: helmets, not yet. The Procopter is made for the people that work on the helicopter. We produced it. The first name of the Procopter was Rega, because it was made for the personnel that work for the Red Cross of Switzerland, the Rega. And they were made for this equipment, for the personnel that work on the helicopter, but not for the pilot or for the co-pilot. Dutch helmets require a different certification. And we'll probably have a helicopter element, but it's not on the market yet. It's not in our production yet. And about the Procopter, it is certified for the 966, but not for the long glider and paraglider use, but for the ultralight use. The difference is that all the impact tests and

conditioning and penetration tests are the same, but the ultralight helmets can have... how do you say? Protrusion, like something that

Aninder: comes out of the helmet, basically. Yes, the ProCopter has a bigger protrusion, So it's not suitable to fly with the paraglider. It was made

Christian Ciech: for the personnel of the helicopter, not for the pilot or the co-pilot that require different certification. And so it is not the same if you use the Euclid 966 helmet or the Anglider and Paraglider 966 helmet. So basically, even paramotor helmets are not recommended to be used in

Aninder: paragliding because the certification requirements for even paramotors or any powered aviation is very different than free flight, is what you're saying. Yeah. Makes sense. It just came to my mind when you were talking about the ultra-right helmets having different standards. I'm just wondering, fighter jets are very secured flying environments. The only reason why a pilot might need impact protection is when he has to bail out of the aircraft or eject out of the aircraft, right? And of course, there's a certain bit of risk of hitting the canopy while ejecting. But coming down under a round reserve parachute is pretty much coming down at five meters per second or something. So do you

have any idea? Why can't fighter jet helmets be so lightweight? And what do you say? What's your take on that? As far as I know, jet helmets are not

Christian Ciech: so light. If we consider the LH250, This is the helmet we probably all of us know because it is the top gun helmet, let's say. That helmet is not so light. And the protection, at the same time the protection is not so good. It has a very good, very strong outer shell. I'm not sure if you have ballistic protection, the reason why the outer shell is so thick. But yes, as far as I know, jet helmets are not so light. And one of the problems that a jet pilot has, and also a helicopter pilot has, is the neck pain because of the weight of the helmet. When flying with a jet plane, the

helmet should be light because you can experience very high G acceleration. And neck pain is one of the main reasons a pilot has to stop flying for a while. So basically we in Free Flight are using one of the best helmets in the market with some of the best possible certification

Aninder: norms. Yeah, the EN966 was made to get the best possible helmet on the market for the sport we are doing. Only a few times certification are

Christian Ciech: just a limitation of the helmet, of a good quality product. Makes sense. I don't know if I'm clear or if it was said in a way, but yes, the certification will put some limits, will give you some limits, but they are, most of the time they are studied to realize the best possible product. Not always, but most of the time. Indeed. Eventually, the best safety is trying to take your own measures and staying safe rather than

Aninder: trying to test all of these safety measures. But before I wrap it up, Christian, I want your thoughts on the project of Nero Hero. Yes, in

Christian Ciech: Italy you can say Nero Ero. Nero Ero, okay. Yeah, this project excited me a lot because I was looking at the webpage of it and there was a very

Aninder: beautiful sketch that was mentioned about how this eventually came into existence and how you guys thought about it. So to start with, can you tell us about what is so great about this helmet and how did you guys work on this project? If you can talk a little bit about an idea of this helmet in particular. We were looking for a new helmet to replace our four-fight helmet. And so we are looking for a nice and clean

Christian Ciech: aerodynamic shape. And at the same time, we had to deal with the new certification requirement. And so we had to increase the volume and to make acceptable the new bigger volume, we had to design a new line. We introduced a full carbon outer shell. And so that's the neural neuron, basically. Makes sense. I want to quickly touch upon the topic of unusual name, the narrow arrow, because the little notebook photo that

Aninder: you have on your pages shows this universe and the planets moving around it, and there are so many other names written. Can you explain to our audiences how did you eventually go and find this really cool name out of all the visualizations and dreaming that probably some artist has put into that? Who made that and what's the story behind it? You should ask Henry. He's an English guy that helped us with some writing. And he's

Christian Ciech: also a glider pilot. So he was the man that was thinking about the name and it came out without sketch. Great. I think I'll request you to forward me

Aninder: his contact later because it's such an interesting visualization. I would love to bring out that story to our audiences for that one. So we'll schedule that for some other show. But on that note, I think, Christian, we have covered everything that we possibly could have wished for in the section of helmet technologies. I usually have this tradition on my show where I ask my guests to share a story or a flight experience from their career which has had an impact or which they remember. Would you like to tell our audiences some small little experience or story that you might have had from all your legendary years of chasing the out-of-flight under a fixed wing? I have, I guess, two very nice

Christian Ciech: experiences that I remember. with pleasure, they say. And they are not connected with competition, but just free flights. And one is a very close meeting with Eagle that I had several times, several years ago. And I was northeast of Italy flying with a rigid wing on that time. And then I started to climb into a thermal and below me, Eagle started to climb in the same thermal. And the moment we were at the same altitude, and then the eagle started to fly around me. Instead of going away, she started to fly around me, and she was looking at me, and I didn't understand what she was doing. And then suddenly she came. I say she because eagle is a female name in Italy. So these eagles start to fly

around. just a couple of meters under my wing and I always ran closer and closer. One time and I was pushing me on the speed but to get a little bit far away from her for me because she was very close. And then when she was about two meters from me, from my body, not from my wing. Then she make a wing over and she flew away. And it was an amazing experience because we spent at least 10 minutes together. It was amazing. So this was one of the experiences. The other was one of probably the first fight that I made with my sons. They are twins. They fight, they start to fight together.

And recently they got the license and the first fight with them was very... Amazing and a very good experience to remember. Indeed, and I

Aninder: can imagine sharing the art of flight with loved ones is priceless. Sharing the art of flight in the sky with the original flyers is also priceless. So I think needless to say, you seem to have had a pretty amazing life chasing your passion. The way you're adding value to the community is quite heartwarming. So please keep it up. Keep on making the magic at iCargo 2000. On that note, Christian, it's been an absolute honor and a pleasure to have you on the show, man. Thank you so much. Thank you to you for the invitation and hope to see you around.