Metacognition: Paragliding's Hidden Psychology with Beni Kalin & Heli Schrempf

So my experience is that when pilots learn and they progress, they're somehow often get on a non sustainable on a non healthy progression. So they end up with this intermediate syndrome skipping steps and put themselves in dangerous knowingly but most of the time not knowingly. And I feel like that happens to a lot of pilots. And some pilots you can tell and like, hey, it's not going to go well if you go on like that. You have to take a step back or two steps back and take it much more easy. And some pilots, they listen very well. And some pilots, they don't listen at all.

And only once they crash and they have pain, then they reflect and take a step back. But I feel like a lot of pilots somehow end up on a non healthy progression for some reason. Not all, but I would say the majority at some point. What do you guys think about that? Have you seen that as well? Yeah, I completely can. I can agree on it. It's like I see maybe some difference as well, because everyone who is learning something has to do some steps. They are not completely right. You have to do something wrong to get experience out of it and to get a learning process starting.

And that's, that's the same like if you do something what you have never done before, you have to step forward. You have to make the step anytime. And it's only the if I think back on myself, I learned most of the stuff by myself as well. I learned the way how it doesn't works. And there's some sometimes in my training as well. I'm, I'm try to bring every pilot on his border to get the next step to get further. And sometimes I'm asking myself, is it good to bring someone fast to a higher point where where we all know it needs time to progress, to grow yourself up, to get confidence in it.

And if you push once someone more and more and more and further and further. And he learned very quick because the some people can learn very quick as well. They were nervous. If you look in acrobatic, it was a hardcore maneuver, Infinity tumbling. And as soon the wings get better, it was quite easy to do it under and then and then as well. Like the time in where you progress is, I think for me a very important part in which time I do and how much time I spend on it. That's what I see on my. Why do you think the time is important? Because you, you sure you can. If you look in the training, I

can teach someone who never have done a stall before in six days how to do a stall. And I remember myself, my, my, my time back when I learned it. It takes me nearly one year to teach it for myself. But in this time, what I did, I did as well. Ways they're going in the wrong way. And I learned out, I take some learning out of it so I know what what can go wrong. And if I push someone and I train them. And he never did. He never did mistakes. If you never do a mistake, you learn nothing out of it. That's what I think. But you can also tell him what

mistakes you have done and what things can go wrong so he doesn't have to make all the mistakes himself like you did, right? You can also just tell him, hey, this is what you really absolutely have to avoid. That's right. That's right. But then you come to the point and say, OK, OK, I shouldn't do that. I shouldn't do it like that, that, that, that, and then I pass this missed ways, OK, but some steps you have to do that. You get a response out of it if it's ever if you train like if it were safety training with a pilot and everything went perfect. I think he cannot learn that much.

He have to do mistakes but and learn to react on it because that's what we need in truth in the true outside because you can't stay your thermal or make it maybe a little bit softer or want to have this, you get mistakes out of it. And that's not that. What we can learn in the safety training. We only can train ourselves to do the right reaction, but as well what we do after we did something wrong. Guys, I want to jump in and and just talk a little bit about something that will guard, I don't know, or maybe some some really cool athletes says cool

as in like, you know, they're accomplished and they've been there done that kind of a thing. I've heard this on Gavin's show as well about like positive power of negative thinking. This is very relatable to me with visualization of some sorts. So when you say that, OK to put it simply, you got to like fuck around and find out to get your own perspective of the things right? Is it possible to have a visualisation of a negative consequence or the outcome based on what your instructor has already done the work for and then try and avoid it? Because obviously learning by doing yourself is the best one

for sure. But obviously there are certain aspects of extreme adventure sports that you wouldn't want to get close to because of the risk of fatality or you know, high, high intensity injury. So in that part, can psychology play a certain effect where those risks can be mitigated because there are other people that you can learn from instead? I think so for sure. Yeah. For example, watching videos of other pilots crashing, you know, having an flying clothes to the ground, big asymmetry hit the ground. Like you don't need to experience that yourself. Watching a video I think is good enough to teach you the respect I guess.

At least for me it is. I mean, I was talking a little bit in the SIV concept that, you know, Haley was touching upon. Like let's say you want to teach a person a two stage staller, like whatever is the best way to stall A2 liner. In that sense, there is a possibility of providing, there's a possibility of glider overshooting yourself. And of course there are visuals out there that you collect, you know, as a coach and then you can impart the knowledge while telling them. But when it comes to absorbing them as a pilot, are you like, how can a pilot best decode that knowledge so that if at all the push comes to shove when they're

actually doing the thing, they they have the visualisation saving them in real time action? I think it's like it's Barack. I think it's like a sport. It's based on physics. That in the end that means for me, if you can, if you understand what you're doing and why it was happen, OK to make the analytics out of it that they say, OK, why I got the call UPS. It doesn't matter if it's the table lenses, if it's the air, it is the profile. This is my pilot reaction. But I have to understand how the system works. If I can, if I can understand what I did wrong, then I can learn out of it.

If I can, if I can watch a movie from I think enough movies out in Instagram YouTube where you can take a look and there are a lot of explanations for like the call UPS or a spin or why you stall it and important is to understand why you have to do it like that and why is that the best resolution or the best outcome. What you can do then you can learn something out of it. If you just watch a call UPS, Oh, it's 50M of ground, 70% huge asymmetric call UPS and then hit the ground and you don't know why you this video helps you

nothing. This is what I've. Is there a way? Because doom scrolling is a very real thing while we are exposed to these kind of visuals and it's so damn easy to open up an app, get some. What is it called? I'm forgetting the chemical that releases when you scroll. Dopamine. There you go, so getting the hit and then moving on to the next one. But somehow you convince yourself Oh no I only watch para lighting videos or I only watch videos which help me. But is there a way that you can try and plan out your dopamine rush so that you extract the best out of it rather than just scrolling on to the next one and

forgetting like a hamster wheel? 15 second memory kind of a thing. It's a good question if you can stop doom scrolling. I know myself when I'm in this focus of doom scrolling. I would say maybe stop using Instagram and sign up on you. Put YouTube for RE in the air and just watch the video every time there's a new one coming out instead of doom scrolling. So pick and choose your dopamine hits basically and then you can register the information much better rather than just having a placebo effect that you are actually, but instead it's just a short term memory which is coming and going every now and then when.

I get a lot of videos sometimes from people that had some accidents and they send it to me. Can you watch it and can you maybe tell me what has happened? And it's for a lot of pilots, it's very important to understand why it was happened and what they can change because there's all the videos would come to me and I'd speak with the pilots. There's a lot of fear in the trust of themselves, like when they go for the next flight and had a big call UPS maybe had an accident out of it and they go for, they still go flying, but it was a very bad feeling, like

stomach bleeding. So do you have control? Did you understand what you do here? And if you explain them what was happened for them? It's very helpful for the brain as well to make new setup in the brain. Just think OK if I did wrong and that I can change and that I can focus on the next level of training still still again to understand what was happened and why that was the result of and I didn't see any video where you can't explain it. I agree there's there's always an explanation. Guys, I just from a thought comes to my mind that OK, you know, when you have somebody to

reach out to like you know any one of you guys, especially when your students come up to you, you know you've been there done that and you can understand it better. The channel are in the air kind of posts, one of things which many people find relatable. But let's say you are a pilot who maybe doesn't have that big of a social circle or are in that side of the world where it is not that easy to access trustworthy voices. What would you if you guys were in their shoes? How would you decode your tough situations like, you know, self analysis or self criticism, I would say, and being honest is is like one of the simplest

solution that just don't kind of lie to yourself. But sometimes when there's a knowledge gap because you did buy A2 liner and you are 2030 hours on a brand new machine which has just come out or could be parakais, could be speedwinks, could be something which is outside your flight envelope as a pilot and there is an uncertain behaviour that you need explanation from. How do you do a self audit where you can find the best answers to your own curiosity without pushing the limits of flight safety? I think it's quite difficult. I've used my reserve once and a long time ago and I didn't have a camera on so I couldn't go

back and look at what exactly happened. What I remember is I started with a big asymmetric and I've stole it, what was left open and that was twisted and then after that what kept on happening. I think I have a memory, but if this is perfectly accurate and it's hard to tell. And I realized a lot of people that lost control, they can't fully recover or they didn't fully get what happened because things go so damn fast. And obviously only the ones that have a camera can show us the video or send it to Ari in the air or whatever. But most pilots, they don't have

a camera running when they fall out of the sky. And things happen so fast that we can't process and somehow memorize everything. And I think there's like guesses that can be made afterwards from instructors, from friends, from good pilots, from the pilots themselves. But I think often pilots are left with not 100% sure why they fell out of the sky. And it's never going to be 100% sure because there's no record of it. It's very hard, yeah. It's very hard to say that that would that should be the way to do it. And what I ended up most of discussion discussions was like we we don't have that. I think, OK, it's just my

meaning out of it. We have not that many things where we fall from the sky. It's like we have drawers, OK? We have twists, OK. And in the end we have the stable spiral, OK And we have the outer rotation with the crowd and I hear not that many accidents with broken materials are some of them were line breaks or something like that. But I will bring that out of the stuff like material stuff or collision that I will be OK. That's for me it's different part and then there are not so many issue points left why you fall from the sky. Most of the time it's the

overreaction of the ballot or a runtime reaction. And and for me was like, this is what was I talking about. That's why I talked about go into the collapsed side. Like the most of the twist I see or what I got by myself comes from a locked hip and as soon I try to block with my body the harness I get very quick with it doesn't matter with straight legs in the bot harness or the legs are close to the harness. It doesn't matter. It's physics. OK. And so that's for me. If you start maybe the start the I will say start the teaching you. So try to give the new pilot the

option to progress and to start slowly and with slowly movements and make them faster later on. If I just go back on the bitch bundle loom like the flying maneuver, they break it very hard and release it very hard. And I don't like this maneuver in this style because it's too hard and your body have no time to realize where I am. So I think with the starting with a. Block hip? You mean you always go with your body? Yeah. With, if the glider lets you go to the right, you go with it and not stay straight, right? Yes. It's like I see my body is part

of the aircraft because if you, it doesn't matter which wing you fly, your body will be the heaviest part of it. Like about if you have 80 kilos and have 10K of equipment. My body is aircraft and that means for me if there's a call up about 50, sixty, 70%, it doesn't matter. As soon the wing collapse, I cannot sit straight anymore. Doesn't work. And you can block whatever you like and we have in all the times ready to push yourself up with the arm and keep your weight with centered. This was a long time. It works and as soon the wings getting more efficient to get faster, getting better tight

ratios, we get different reactions out of it and it's very basic. Physics for me is if I have a small surface with a lot of weight on it, there will be happening and there is just a thing. If I go back now, last year I did about 20/20/21 weeks of SPC training over the lake with two liners, some basic Acros, just normal beginner pilots. And in the last year in this all week, I had zero rescue deploys because I'd be focused on specialties parts. And it was one year before it was 6 rescues over the old over over the whole year. And if I remember back 10 years ago, we had up for 1234 rescues,

deploys per week, the trainings week. And the most time was speeded, collapses, installs. And then I paste it back on the body movements and I sent up the pilot this aircraft and say, OK, if there's no lift or a collapse, weights collapse, there is no pressure anymore, so go with it. And I could really see the progress when people learn that movements that they have much more control over the wing. But that means we have to go away from weightlifting the strong weightlifting Pullman it's and be more focused on the steering lines, on the brakes. And that was the result out of it. So the reason people use rescues is twists I guess?

And what you are saying is when they go with the glider they don't block the hip. The chance of getting twisted is a lot smaller, so they use the reserve less. Right. Yeah. Just to kind of add on guys, this works super well if height is your friend, let's say racing scenarios or pushing the limits when you're kind of chasing long distance and you want to glide off to the next thermal without turning. Terrain is in close proximity instinctively. At least what I do is when I'm flying super close to the terrain. I do have a slight bit of you can say this is psychological or could be real, but I do tend to

be ready to put my weight shift away from the Ridge. So in, in those kind of scenarios, this is probably a recipe to go into the trees or something or impacting the terrain. How do you navigate? Because obviously if you're trained in a certain way that you're saying that you know, you, you keep on going with the collapse that builds your intuition. And in that scenario, this intuition is kind of turning into impact. So what would you do to navigate that kind of a scenario when you've trained in another scenario? This is say this is a question as well. I cannot go into a collab side

when the mountain is on this side where I should go. In the end, the wing is not interested if there's a mountain or not as well as well. It's for them. It doesn't matter if there's a mountain or not.

Sure, there are some lifts up print draft, downwind drafts that make it different on the mountain side, but in the end it's the same. And we have we still see wings. Now if you shift your weight in the center, you immediately turn into the open side. That's a result of efficient. And you talk about two liners like more, more, more or less everything on the market it's. It's still happen on the mid B sector as well. It goes down to low B sometimes. We get the same profiles like on the high expected ratio wings back in A wings with the S shape with the S3 little reflex part.

And we could I see that already working on a wings to have this profile constructions and it's yeah, it changed over the time. What should I say? So to sum it up, basically centering or going with the glider if the height and terrain allows is allowing you to not lock your hips, which in turn is less susceptible to twisting which means less cascade and eventually easier to come out. Is is that the take away from the discussion so far? So I have to be very careful with this what I'm talking here about it because it depends as well as they OK, if you go all time with your wing and you want

to go on cross country and you want to have efficient flying and you all time go with your wing, you all time have a little bit of rolling moments inside and your efficient will be not. That's not what I say you should all the time go with it. For me like to understand what can my wing keep? Like the new wings, if you go a little bit on speed, but they're getting much more stable, you fly on B risers or if you have a three liner on the BC steering and you trust more your wing. That's the same what you do on the like the moustache.

You trust fully their profile if you let them fly and same we do with the normal wings. And for me it means as well when I go on cross country, I go on speed. But what growth because the rain. I stay on the tension in my body because that I can feel it. So really I try to be a little bit on my tension on my stomach muscles. I'd be focused OK, but it's soon there is I feel someone one of my side, one of the side of my wing is dropping down. I open my luck on the stomach and go with them to give them support and keep them on

pressure. It's the same what every pilot do. It's like release, go on this PC maybe and you come up again, you go forward again. And these are the, this is for me active flying. But there is a very important psychological thing behind. If you go on tension and there is something happened and we all are trained, there is something happened, we have to do something, we have to block more. And I try to teach the people the opposite side. So stay on tension, assume there's something happens, release, go with it and come back. Yeah, that's what I tried to explain the training that should be the goal on. How do you see people reacting

to that are because releasing is fine, but coming back or like coming back to normal AC I think is where a lot of possibility to cascade comes along because it's easy to correct, but keeping on correcting is like very intuitive to keep you safe, right? So how is the general reaction of the populace in in this kind of teaching for you? In in the beginning, it's very hard because it's more working on your brain to trust yourself and to trust the system, to trust the physics behind and it's more I'd be focused on training with someone or myself on it. It's better. It's get us more confidence

again and with the confidence my, my brain stays longer focused and I get more the feeling to be inside the aircraft. And especially it's not pop one if you put your weight shift on the opposite side and you're working against your wing. And this gives most of the people the feeling of lose control. And lose control as well means overreacting. That's quite interesting. I, you know, we can totally dive deep into this, but I just want to zoom out for the sake of the topic of the episode. It's like, let's let's talk a little bit about emotional arc guys here. Can I add one more thing? Sure, please.

It's very interesting, Halley's theory with the hips and going with it. And I fully agree. I've used my reserve. This one time I've ever used it, it was because I did not go with the glider. I had 80% collapse. I had it because I leaned so much into it. I did so much weight shift to the inside while thermal ink because I realized I was about to fall out. So I put my full weight on the inside so much that the outside of the glider had almost no more weight. So it it had no wing load and it got the moment it hit the little bit of sinking air, it just

collapsed. And it probably wouldn't have collapsed as big if I wouldn't have done such a big way shift. So I think one important point is what Harry says to always go with it to avoid the twist. But I think a lot of people make the mistake. They use so much weight shift that they unload the outside while thermallying much more than they should. And then the chance of getting a collapse there is much, much bigger. And then they also block the hip and get twisted like I did. So I did both of those mistakes and maybe back in the days 20 years ago, the Gladys didn't turn very well.

They were rather flat. They didn't have much arc. The Azimetrics were pretty bad, the reactions and you had to lean in to get the glider around. You couldn't use as much brake. They didn't have any shark nose. They were Stoli. So you needed weight shift to get those gliders around. And nowadays the gliders are much more agile. They turn much nicer. So when I'm going cross country flying now, sometimes I do a bit of waitress, but most of the time I don't really lean into my collide that I sometimes I even lean a bit to the outside because on the inside I usually don't get a collapse.

I had a lot of brake on. I'm afraid of getting a collapse on the outside. So sometimes I lean out a little bit just to keep some extra wing loads and make sure I'm not going to get a collapse there. Yeah. So just wanted to put that out as well. And I want just to finish this and that what he say many it's that what I see the last 10 years and there is a big thing is like we get stuffed gear stuff like harnesses where we they get blocked more and more again. So as well, if you see, if you watch back 15 years ago, you had

low attachment points in the carabinas and now they're going up again like to the shoulder part and they start blocked. I think 10 years ago they start blocking the harnesses that you can't use that much way shift anymore. And I was all of them asking why they did it when we all in the schools we teach shift more your way. Come on, push more with your way shift and the manufacturers. I don't teach that. No, but it's a lot of like in little ring overs and say, hey, do it just with your way shift. And then you feel you can't push more on your way shift because

your harness is blocking you. And they say, yeah, but you have to push more and then that comes out of it. And there was only, in my opinion, like they forget to tell the schools why they block the harnesses because the wings get more efficient, they get more dynamic. They react much better on the brakes. There's no problem anymore on the steering on the opposite side, on the call UPS that you immediately stall it. There's much more reservant. Exactly, and because when you do get a collapse they don't turn as quick as aggressive with the collapse nowadays, so it is also less of a problem if you go with

it. It doesn't mean the wing is going to react very aggressively. But it was interesting at last last winter. I flow. I don't know if you remember this time Blue Angel from Ande Bucha. This wings already over 20 years old or 202225 years I think so and I was flying in the dune and I pulled the call ups and I tried to do the same to go in and to steering on the opposite. It already worked. It wasn't a problem at this time as well, but you have to be a little bit more gently, but it as well. It works as well on the old wings. Just got to practice it all

basically. So practice is the key here, right? Train hard enough and you will. Yeah, in, in my opinion, in that discussion with the asymmetrics, I think one thing is absolutely key. The moment you get that asymmetric collapse, you have to pull the outside brake if you're late with that. So if you lean into the collapse like we recommend you, you go with it. You don't block the hips, but you don't put the outside brake on immediately. Then the gliders, of course, some of the gliders, they will turn and they can turn fast. But when you do get an asymmetric and you put on the opposite brake immediately, then

you don't need the weight shift. You can go with it and the glider goes straight and that's what you have to do. When you get the collapse close to the mountain, you have to be quick with the brake on the outside and then you don't need a ton of brake, but the timing is important. You have to be quick. Do you agree, Heli? I I'm not agreeing that completely, sorry. Why not? I, I need to go a bit on physics, OK, There's sure that we have to make the difference in moving air up or down draft or just in still air and in the still air. It's for me it's like at first

wait for the reaction of the system. It could be sometimes outside in the turbulent EMS you have to be very quick and to put a hot input and there is sometimes happen you have to wait much longer than it's still here and this there is a. Why do you have to fight? You have some movement, if you think about you have collapse the wing is above you, OK, you're sitting in the centre and you collapse your wing about 50%, OK, That what's happened first is your resistance get bigger, OK? That means depending where you are at this moment from your pendulum and if you're mass moving forward, it makes the

angle of tech higher about the resistor and as well you cannot sit in the center anymore. That means it will start a roll, A roll moment. OK. And that means for me, if I go into the collapse side, I accept the wing will start to roll now. And if that happens, the surface because the projected areas is interested for is interesting for us because that makes the lift what's important for us. If the wing stays on the side of you and you give them the option to roll, your projected surface will get bigger again, OK. And you keep it on the side and then you have a bigger surface.

And this surface with the roll moment is sometimes that the indicated resistant getting the same size than the colour side that's happened in the SO ES, that's what we see. That's what we're talking about. But this movement can change depending in which turbulence you are. That means it could be if you're too early, then could be like stall or like a very quick spin. If you're too late, could be like cascade, OK. And that means for me the reaction cannot be the same old time. It's different and that's for me to understand this roll moment, what's happened with the physics there. And that means for me as well. And if the roll moment starts,

and that's for me the important thing about why you go into the collapse site, you start the roll moment and force the wing a little bit. The resistance get not in the pendulum, in the high angle of attack, change it to a roll moment and sure, the smaller surface will try to get faster because the small surface say you have no more weight chip on the small surface. That means for me I have to go at this moment it will start. The wing starts going faster with the resistant on one side higher. He starts turning in this direction and that makes it for me much very difficult to say sure.

You have a call UPS put your brake in straight away. If you do it too early and your wing is still on the side of you take the break, you immediately it's possible to turn in the open side. So I cannot agree completely to say all time push the put full brake in in maybe 80%. Of not staying full brake? No, no. No, OK, sorry. Maybe a little bit of brake? Yeah, No, I wouldn't put full brake because if you have a huge collapse then you stall it. No, but I think like a little bit of brake, 1020 centimeters, but to put a little bit of brake

very quickly And then if the glider still wants to turn, you can go more or if it turns the opposite way you can release. But I found on the SIV trainings those people who are especially when you fly on speed bar and when people are a little bit late pulling the open brake, then they are very surprised how dynamic the wing can react. And if you put just a tiny little bit of outside brake, the gliders reaction is so much more gentle. Even. If it still shoots and turns but just having a little bit of break on the outside like reduces the dynamic of a collapse a lot I think. Depends between, yeah.

It's a very interesting conversation guys, but I I do tend to agree with stopping the dive of the flying side. The projector surface area makes a lot of sense, but if the dive is coming in too fast, too hot, then it that itself has a psychological effect on you, which is adding to the overwhelming sequence of events, which again depends on how much you have practiced it, how much you're exposed to it, and then how your reactions will be. But you know, as I was, I want to build up on this and say that let's try and take an example of a pilot. Now I want to talk a little bit

about fear, intuition and decision making. Not exactly in the in the same manner, but like let's say if we are talking about a very keen pilot, somebody who knows this is the sport is for them and they are investing their time, energy and money and want to be one of the best. In the beginning. I think there is inherent fear based on humans on doing something which is outside the comfort zone. So they do take some steps which are mitigating that fear, for example, like there's a fear of heights, which is already inculcated in us so that we don't throw ourselves off things which can hurt us.

I don't know if you guys know about the killing zone. The book it was it's it's a it's a very famous book written by some like fixed wing pilot. Basically he says that pilots in 200 to 500 hour bracket in fixed wing aircraft are most susceptible to killing zone. I think it's 300 to 500 because before that it's the intuitive fear that stops us. And after that is the experience that stops us from doing stupidity in in paragliding. I believe that switches a lot less. It comes down to like 50 to 70 hours. Because before that, when you're a beginner, you're kind of playing it safe.

You know, it's a brand new way of moving. You have learned and of course you're still discovering the forces and the feelings that come with it. But let's say you're a pilot who has done their homework in the 1st 2050 hours and then you're like, OK, now I'm good enough to go to a mid B, low, high B, whatever, depending upon your, you know, scale and confidence. So there's there's a bit of a rapid progression stage where there's a lot of adrenaline, there's a lot of enthusiasm and you are feeling that you are going on a right note or like you are actually kind of progressing where you want to. And there we have something

which can catch us off guard. If something out of the ordinary happens, you can label it as overconfidence. I do not know how many your reserve throw was or what kind of caused it, but I could relate to it very well because I did deploy in in a very similar situation. I had an 890% collapse vent opposite overcorrected it so much that the collapse side opened so violently that the side which was open collapsed and then it was like just a yo-yo between everything and then next thing I know the wing is diving under me because it stalled behind me. That happens a couple of time and it ends up in in double

twists and autorotation. So I would say that looking back at it, it was definitely over confidence because I was, you know, I was, I was 10 hours on a high B. This was after 90 hours on AE and A. So early fear saves you from doing something out of the ordinary. Then there's progression. Then there's something known as overconfidence, which might lead to your first big scare rebuilding from there on. This is is a bit of an open-ended question and it's very subjective because giving up is obviously the easier part. You're like, OK, I want to stay alive rather than keeping on flying. So let's talk about once you

have been there, done that experience there, how do you kind of figure out that I have to get back on the horse and I have to keep it going? Yeah, I'm the wrong guy. I'm still struggling with that myself. Ever since I'd throw my reserve, I'm scared over Cliff. No, but like I mean that that's a good starting point. I would say like if after years of, you know, investing your heart and soul into the sport, what what is the learning that you have told yourself with, with those feelings that that are coming with, with such situations? Maybe that is a good relatable thing that audiences can

understand from. Well, the only thing I can say that it's very hard. So if you have an experience, some people, they just kind of go on and forget about it. But then there is always that chance that this experience is so scary or whatever that it like gets into that part of your brain, this unconscious part of your brain, and you just can't get rid of it. No matter how brave you try to be and no matter how many hours you try to fly that it's, it's always going to be there and going to scare you. And it's super hard to get rid of it again.

And I still don't know how to get rid of that. It's like 10 years ago now. I can completely agree with if you. I had an accident on speed flying long time ago. I broke my heel in seven parts and I'm a little bit scared of speed flying now for sure in this moment. But sometimes then I have to go. You have a good day and a good feeling. And so then I go and it's it will be it's your experience will be all time there. Like it's maybe just behind in your brain anywhere you can block it a long time. But like in the speed flying accident of myself, it was like

it was completely my own fault. It was like I had an 10m from ozone. I don't it was, I think it was something like that very old. It was more like a speed flying wing guiding a long time ago already 14 years, 12 years I think. And I decide to take off on the Cliff. We say if the wing is there, the wind was strong, if I jump it will carry me anytime. So it doesn't matter. And some friends told me how you can't do that, it's too dangerous to jump off the Cliff. And I decide to go to normal take off. And I wasn't sure about the issue would be good or another

can pass through take off. Then they take it off and they couldn't. So then they ended up in the stones and it was a thing like somebody say, don't do that. And do it in a different way. And already before it's just working maybe 40%. And then I went to the exalts in 2019 and I had there not one time the feeling I'm out of my comfort zone like this. It was sometimes tricky, but when I decide I was 100% sure I can do this and to listen on your stomach on your feeling about, I don't know everyone who is out there in the mountains. Sometimes you have the feeling.

I'm not sure if I should do that. Listen. That makes I think a lot of time protection as well. If you go in topple and ears and cross country, if you feel your stomach tell you or keep distance a bit from this wall, do it. It was from my time all the time when I get in trouble situations, I'm not listening to this feeling. I get closer and say because I have to fight sometimes in competitions your brain turn off. I don't know. And then it often happened to me like these situations. This is very interesting for me because I think learning to say no is quite healthy in a lot of

situations, not just flying but in general life as well, when you have to override your temptations and come to the realistic expectations of the situation. So let's say there's a sunk cost, which I feel which is very strong and para lighting because it airtime comes so seldom, you know, you don't get airtime at will, for example, like soccer or hockey or any other sport. You pick up a ball, you go out there, you play it for four hours, you get the the satisfaction that you want from it in paralleling. It's based on a lot of variables, but obviously the reward is pretty epic as well because you're flying in the air

and you know, you're like living like a bird. So if there's a sun cost that OK, man, I drove all the way here. I have waited three weeks for this day, blah, blah, blah. And then finding the courage to say no, this is outside my comfort zone. I'm not sure what the history was behind your ankle injury and that, but have you guys like figured out a healthy way to pull back and say that live to fly another day no matter how enticing it sounds? I think for me it's very easy to say that because any the same, my life is fully in power guiding. So I try to go flying every day

I can. So I have a lot of days for flying. If people would stay 2-3 weeks and then to find the spot to stay. No, not for me today. And then it's coming as well. You have to to to reflect your own skills to the conditions. And if you don't fly that much, it's very hard to judge the Metrologic. Metrologic, yeah. Yeah, yeah, the. Conditions. Yeah, to judge the conditions to your skill level. So I'm, I'm, I'm able to fly that and then do for me what's like in the competitions all the time. I want to have 20% backup. So I have to have 20% backup

that I can do that. And if you think you're on your border, you have to think about it. You should do it, but it's very hard how to touch that. I think though, especially as a low airtime pilot, as you said, like we are professionals and if we can touch the conditions better than most other pilots and there's less surprises to us. But when you're a low airtime pilot, we all don't see the air. It's transparent. So there's a lot of surprises out there. And I think especially for a low airtime pilot, then you get more often this gut feeling that might say no. And I think it's important to listen to it.

Yeah, when you have it, yeah. Benny, I want to talk a little bit about the coaching aspect of this because you have like, you know, the speed flying school where there's a regular roster of new pilots coming to you every now and then, not just for safety training, but for the whole ecosystem in itself. And you, you teach paragliding and you're transcending into paraglides pretty amazingly as well for all the awesomeness that you and Flair have created together. So let's say from a coach's responsibility, you know, there is a bit of a balance where you do have to make your students independent, as in you have to give them enough ammunition to

go fight for themselves, but at the same time tell them how to, how not to push the limits when you are not on radio or you are not making the decisions for them. So coming, let let's say there's somebody you know who's listening to this, who wants to teach in future or there are people who are imparting knowledge to to younger pilots, to lower airtime pilots. What what would you say a coach's responsibility lies in situations like this where they have to prepare the students, but at the same time kind of make sure that they are able to hold back when needed by their own critical thinking. Yeah, I, I always, as an

instructor, try to teach the people the needed respect for flying sports. It doesn't matter if it's paragliding or speed flying. I've also done BASE jumping and skydiving, and it's kind of the same. Whatever flat, whatever goes up must come down. And I, the first thing I tell my students when we start paragliding is stand on the table, pump on your butt, and you break your back. So basically 1m height is enough to end up in a wheelchair if you're unlucky. And I think that fact needs to be the base of all decision you take throughout your career. You have to have this in mind that it's so easy to break your back because we are sitting for

a BASE jumper. A scatter is a little bit different. They're hanging and they don't break their backs that often. They usually break their ankles, their hips, their legs because they smash into with legs 1st and they can do a parachute landing fall, which when this is well trained, there's a lot less risk of breaking any bones. But in paragliding we do sit and on top of that we put one leg down as well instead of bows and as well sometimes, which is also a pretty bad thing when you crash. Yeah. So I really try to teach them enough respect and and make sure they realise that as soon as

they're a little bit in the air, this can be very dangerous. But then at the sometime, at the same time, I also encourage them to try new things and show them, hey, this is dangerous. This maneuver is also dangerous. But that's how it can be done safely. And I think a lot of times instructors, they teach their students, don't do this. It's dangerous. And guess what the people are going to do the next day? They're going to try it because they don't know why it's dangerous, why they should not do them. If we instructors just tell our students, don't do this, it's dangerous, you're not ready for

this, but. You know, that's most of the words. But some do it anyway, right? But if you tell them, hey, look, this is the skills you need to Start learning that maneuver or start doing that thing or start flying this way, you need these and these skills. And if you don't have these skills, this is what happens. And then most people understand and they're smart about it and they don't do it. But that is a 10 minutes explanation and just telling them it's dangerous, don't do it. It's 3 seconds. So yeah, I think it's our job as instructor is not just telling them, hey, pull the right brake and he goes right, they'll

figure it out by themselves or how to fly active, they'll figure it out. I think part of it is also, or a big part of it is teaching them the respect it needs and helping them and showing them what a healthy progression looks like. Yeah, especially for someone like us, we have a lot of followers on Instagram and we post a little bit crazy content, sometimes repeated be like, oh, fuck, that looks sick. I want to do this. And I feel like everyone that posts stuff that is difficult, that is potentially dangerous, has a bit of a responsibility as well. And tell people, hey, this is cool.

It can be done safely, but only when you have done this before. And a lot of times that's what we don't see on social media, right? Nobody posts a video of something and then writes down the list of things you have to be able to do before you should train this. And that is, yeah, obviously a little bit dangerous. Yeah, it's completely the respect, the respect to yourself, to the nature and to the wings. And it was like what Creakley says in an interview I think a few months ago, he say para cutting, it's a dangerous sport. Yes, it is. Absolutely, 100% yes it is. And on the other side, I have to say, in the end, if the wings,

what we fly, the equipment would be used, that's not dangerous anymore. And this is the thing, what I say, it's like the combination of the respect to nature, to the metrology and to the stuff, to the conditions, because that makes it dangerous. If you have like I tried that already just to teach someone in two hours paragraph and he takes off and fly down Montebaldo after two hours. Yeah, in perfect conditions would say it's not a dangerous sport in this opinion. But if the conditions change, it gets dangerous. And so, yeah, yeah, respect. Exactly. I always tell my students it's flying turbulence what separates the boys from the man flying in

calm air. That's easy. I think I was pushing full bar on my glider and I was like, you know what, I'm ready to do this. I want to go to a high B and then I want to go to AC in this much time. I was just talking to my first, like one of the first instructors and he was like, buddy, you're doing top to bottoms. Anybody can do top to bottom on full bar on a high sea in this air. Try going cross country and then push full bar and then talk to me about upgrading you know? There we go. Yeah. Maybe, maybe coming back, had he

started already with this? It's always a combination of three things. So the pilot with the skills, the wing with the aspect ratio, how demanding it is, and the conditions these things need to fit. I can put a student on a END wing that is easy to take off, like ENDX OPS wing for example, and let him fly down without a radio first flight on his own. If there's a huge landing, no turbulence, no wind, he won't die if I teach him how to take off. At the same time, I would not send that student out with the safest wing in very nasty conditions because he's not ready for it.

So these three things, they need to align. And if you as a pilot choose a wing that is too difficult for you, you have to know the conditions very well and to touch them very well and always only go flying very nice and not so strong conditions. However, if you stay on a glider that is very easy and it's you're always in the comfort zone, you can push the conditions a little bit more. You have to be a little bit less picky about the conditions you fly. So I think these three pillars, they that's the most important thing at the end, they need to fit. I would completely agree.

I just would say the equipment, all of the harness is important. I was, I was pretty sure because it is one thing everybody's talking in this scene about the wings, wings and very less discussion about the harnesses. And for me it's really the whole equipment you have. That's for me a big difference again, and I'm completely agree with it. But I think the wing is the most important and I've done a few posts about the sublight. I think it's an amazing harness. There is this sock X the Styrofoam protector. I have no idea how good it really is. I don't test those. It doesn't make the best

impression to me. But other than that, the harness is amazing. And when you fly fast you have such a good advantage on glide. But there's so many people that would not buy it because they think the protection is bad. But at the same time they fly ENT wings and I think they will be safer if they go to a en C but then fly a harness with less protection. Because when you're on a easy forgiving glider, you are a lot less likely to use your protector. Ever. We should have a scoring system of some points on a scale of 1 to 10 that like, I mean, you know, there's insane amounts of

AI doing computing power which is available to every general audience as well these days and not just the big tech. It's like for example, let's say we have a wink. It has a safety rating of this to this on a scale of 1 to 10. And then there is ideal pilot profile based on which it is calculated. For example, you say the pilot has flown 50 hours. It has these many reactions or you know, it has it has done these many SIV courses or that is the reaction time to an asymmetric. So you fill in those details and maybe you know, if there's an IT guy listening to to us right now, maybe you can develop some

sort of a automated AI agent to kind of figure this out. But let's say if you have these variables which you fill in and then there is a certain wing which has that kind of behaviour, a certain harness. And if you can put together an ecosystem where you are able to see that, OK, based on my ability as a pilot. Like for example, in bodybuilding, there's BMI, right? Like you, you, you put in your body composition and then you're like, OK, now this is your body type. And that is how you will respond to lifting weights. So similarly, if we guys have something like that, that this

is your flying type or this is your pilot type, that you fly these many hours and at this regularity and like endless number of such things can collect data points and then have a deliverable that your safety rating on this setup is on a scale of 1 to 10. I think something like that will magnitude magnitudinally help people understand the reality of it. And then you want to lie to yourself. Be my guest. Like, you know, continue lying to yourself, but at least you know what the numbers say on the very basic things, which will make things a lot more clear. Just the thought of my head.

I think what we need is they have, I think as far as I understand, I'm not a pilot flying airplanes, but an airline pilot. They have to go to these simulated checks every once in a while to check their skills, right? And I think we should invent a simulator that checks the active flying part. So how good are we at keeping our glider open? And then you can set it up. It starts with turbulence level 1 and it goes up to turbulence level 10. Then you can check and you can choose to win like AB low B, mid B. And you can see how good are you

at keeping that glider open, not getting collapses. And then how good are you at when you have collapses, reopening the Collider without stalling it, getting back to flight? I think that will be a amazing machine to have. And you would people put on and let that program run through. And at the end it tells you exactly how you according to that check you should only be flying a maximum of maybe high B wings. I just a different thing of this. I started about four or five years ago. I started teaching the two liners with the Austria German League and they arrived to the first training and I was talking

with them and say they were super nervous. It was like really one, one told me after three days and when we drove 11 hours to this fucking lake and 9 hours in the car, we had just fear to go with the two line over the lake and do some maneuvers. I just feel the such thing. You drive 11 hours in the car and 9 hours of fear to go into SRV training. Yeah, this guy said. Toby, I'm flying tow liners now since over 10 years. I never had a problem. I fly them for 10 years just in normal conditions, some rough conditions and now they are

super scared to start doing the first maneuvers. So if he if you put him on a collab simulator he surely will fuck up for sure. But so it's both it's a active flying simulator and then the extreme flight simulator. And in my opinion, the active flying part, that's anyway the most important part when you never get a collapse, you don't need to go to an SRV training because you don't have to know how to deal with a collapse if you don't ever get collapses. And that is my personal opinion. Maybe you disagree with this, but people are always like, oh, you can't fly A2 liner if you

don't know how to stall your wing. And I'm like, yeah, and what if you get a huge collapse 10 meters off the ground? Your full stall that you've trained over the lake 100 times doesn't have to your shit. You're going to hit the mountain before you can even think about your full stall. So you have to be able to keep your glider open. Agree with you like this stall thematic is part is a very difficult one. But if I would say if you fly a stall like we did the last 25 years and someone do it in a safety training one or two or three stalls and use 400 meters to recover one stall exit.

And I completely understand everyone who say and never will use it outside. OK. And this topic of fly back stall, you have to stall your wing on the two liner. I have to agree and I disagree on this topic. What you say is if you how to handle it, you have a feeling for the wing. It's not important to do perfect stalls and fly back on your two liner, but it's very important to get the confidence to your stall point and. Absolutely. Just give me just a second please. And there is what I hear in a lot of trainings is you have to keep the wing in the fly back. And I completely disagree this.

The fly back is just one position. What could be happens if you play around on your stall point And I'd be focusing on the stall point just to stall it in the right moment to get a feeling for the stall point. And the result is you can do about 34 stall points in one flight in gutter, depends on your healthy conditions. But yeah, your muscles in the end, you don't need power, you need force for it. If you do it in the right timing. It's just if in the timing wrong, you need a lot of power. But and that's what I say as well to change the maneuvers to use it outside, what I can use

outside to to bring it together, what I have to drain to use it outside. And that's not the fly back, that's the stall point. But it could be happened the fly back in if you train on the stall point. And that's what I mean, it's maybe the wrong, the party states the maneuvers are completely cleaned, yet the fly back was the goal for me. It's not the fly back the goal, it's just a result. It's the stall point. It's the goal to get a feeling for it, to put it on the right point. And as well, if you get an asymmetric collapse and you stall your wings, you have to

release again. So that's for me important. And to clear crabs you have to stall the wing. Maybe asymmetric, maybe symmetric, depends on the size. Or to spin it a little bit. That should be a basic skill if you fly 2 lines that I have to say to you. I think it's great if you obviously are very good at active piloting, but also good at the extreme flight. And I fully agree knowing your stall point in different situations of stall point over the lake and stall point in moving air in a lot of lift is actually a different story as well. But I agree, it's, I think both

is important to have, but I have the feeling people often think they can people, I feel people want to be safe. So OK, I'll do safety training and SAV once a year and then I'm safe. I'm like, no, it's like for me, the safety training, the SAV is like doing an avalanche course. And what's the most important thing you learn in an avalanche course is not how to dig your friend out, how to avoid getting into an avalanche. And for me, the active flying is the prevention. Like you try not to get collapses, you try not to get into a tricky situation. And for me, that's the most important part.

And the other part is also important. But if the first part is done well, I don't need the second part. Actually, it's still good to train it. And I absolutely recommend people to do as Ivs. But the one thing you cannot learn in Asavi is the active flying and the active flying. You need to go out, spend time in active air, in turbulent air to get that skills. And I often feel like pilots are not so much aware of this. They try, they think it's normal. It's part of the sport. You get collapses all the time. So I have to learn to deal with it. I'm like no, you need to learn

to avoid collapses and your progression. It's very easy to know if you're ready for the next glider. If you can fly your glider in many hours in a cross country flight and not get collapses, then you are probably ready to step up. That's right. I heard from a friend of mine he is professional kayak, he's doing slalom kayak but he trains a lot freestyle and asked him why meant going for slalom. OK why are you training that freestyle? You want to compete as well And he said no, it's just if I fuck up slalom, I'm on freestyle. OK. And that's the SOV, right? It's not the SOV freestyle, it's not the SOV.

In the end, freestyle means what means SOV for me. Sure, but we cannot train in SOV providing collapses or stuff like that. Or do the right do the right reaction on the collapse. I have to say every collapse you pulled in a training have nothing to do with true outside. You only can train to see the movement of your wing in different angles where you pull the collops in OK and try to make your body react that you get the last reaction of the system out what you can get out. It's different to the certification and to work with the system to have a higher chance to step into it. If you find different points to

say I know this movement and to jump into it in the true outside, but there's more movement now that I know before, so I have to stop it with more brake. So I can we can only train in basic air, in still air without any turbulences, abdominal drafts. But for me it's more important different maneuvers like wing over like example, if you have a like little wing overs and you start working more on the brakes as well with the pulling inside and support brake on the outside one. For me to support brake outside the same like if you have the fast turning call UPS going forward downwards, it's the same

like the movement. I have to follow in the movement because I can't work against this too much force. But I have to use the brake in this moment, what you told before as far I can to stop this movement and quick. So I have to train different maneuvers to get skill level to start feeling myself better. And for me, it's just if I feel confident with little wing, I was about close to 90° and I feel super confidence. But I fly in high expected ratio wing where we know as well as in the collabs when they start turning and start letting go the energy, what's in this wings,

They're going like hell forward, sidewards. And then you're over 90 and if you train wing overs and you have a good confidence to 100 and 6100 and 70° over the wing and you have good support on the wing and you feel good there, they get the feeling to control it. For me, it's the chance to the right reaction. If I get a big collapse and he starts turning, especially the same movement like the wing over, he's diving forwards, sidewards, downwards. I can stay easier like on confidence to do the right one. Then I don't drain them. Nervous. Guys, super interesting talk. You know, I think we can keep on going back and forth on this,

but before I lose my train of thought and we were talking a bit about the equipment, I just want to come back to helmets for a second before we move on to the next topic. Of course, you know wings themselves and harnesses are usually the talk of the town. We see the amount of R&D that the industry is going with is also one of the most common offerings or the most brands that exists are wings and harnesses. Helmets on the other hand are very like kind of niche of the niche in in in our sport and we have only a couple of manufacturers giving it a shot

To me visuals, visual stimuli is a very huge part of decision making I would say you know, depending upon what you see and how your brain tells you to react. Just out of curiosity, does it make a huge difference going from half face to full face? Because if peripheral vision is questioned then it will make you think a bit longer compared to a situation where periphery is a lot more clearer. For example in half face helmets which has been my comfort zone because as soon as I put a full face 1 I feel like I'm really blocked off. Let's say aerodynamically when you're racing in top of the line competitions it makes a lot of

sense. But when it comes to just chasing regular cross country, what is your guys opinion on helmets for people going out and making a decision? Because chin protection versus periphery vision is quite a huge trade off in my opinion. Yeah, for me it's like I'm using just the half shell since I stopped power guiding and never flow the chin protection. So I've no experience. The only thing what I know is the wish I'll get a little bit smaller with the full. Benny, have you? I think you can get used to anything. I think it's more what you get used to. I don't think those paragliding full face helmets, I don't think

they restrict you much. I think if you put ski goggles on then your vision is a lot less restricted. And I'm 100% sure if you have a good full face helmet, it is much safer than a not full face helmet for sure. But you're also going to sweat a ton more and. Yeah. If it's needed for a student that takes off on grass and lands on grass in 30° in summer to put on a full face helmet. I don't know. Maybe if you launch in a steep terrain with sharp rocks and you're a beginner, maybe it's a good thing if you do a pingo because you overshoot your wing and you don't catch it and you

put face plant. I'd like to have a full, but again, if you go in winter, you learn on snow and you land on snow. Do you need a full face helmet? Probably not. But yeah, statistic they show we break our backs and our legs. So I think it's better to invest in in a good protection on your harness than on the helmet in general. There's always cases where people hit their head of course, but in general usually you hit with your butt first. Now if you. Have you been following the 10 developments for the harness protection that have been going on when in the civil group for

pilots union? Because a lot of times, let's say people are like the brands in general, we talk about XOC. If we talk about XR7, like those kind of conventional harness era, the jerk rating, which is the amount of G force that hits you when you kind of land on your ass, was the key metric in designing the protection for the harnesses. And that's why XO seats and XR Sevens had a huge ass protector to conventional foam protectors. I'm talking about before the Corioid and those kind of inflatable ones took over. And then the jerk rating just went out of the picture because it was just a number which was being able to like it was

covered by the tiniest amount of Corioid as well, which was like almost just a wafer thin. So have you guys had like any opinions on the way submarine style ones are taking over but completely disregarding the foam or like the the difference or the compression that the material used to have in conventional ones? I don't have much of an opinion on that. To me, I think this is a very difficult, very technical discussion and it's easy to have an opinion about it. But to have a good based, fundamental fact based opinion and knowledge about it, I think that's a full time job. Yeah, there is about protection

like I think I see it sometimes as well like if you it's depending. I I fly on my tandem harness. I prefer to fly without the protection in my tongue because with the big protection, because below my ass of my legs, it blocks my movement. OK. And so for me, it's much more important to have the full mobilization and full movement of my legs to protect the passenger. And if I have the full protector inside, I really can feel I can't do the step like I want to do it. And at the moment we, there was a time where we get very huge protectors on the harnesses.

It was about 30 centimeters of protection and we had this wide side protections in the harness and that and I tried to ground handle with one of these harness and that's very hard sometimes because you can't move anymore. So I think it's very difficult to stay between and the most problem what we have is about the spine compression where we break fine and that's coming from a flat deep impact. And I don't know if we can get any time that good protections. They really can absorb this shock. There will be all timer risk and in my thing we have huge protector below you and it's not

completely fixed and lightweight harness, it will get pushed sidewards sometimes. So it's good to have a good protection, but I think we can as well over protect harness. Makes sense? I I think the future is going to be those inflatable protractor protractors that, for example, the ski racers have or those new motorbike helmets that the moment you fell off your bike, it recognizes and boom and then it inflates. I think that's what we should have. Airbag. I don't know anyone who is developing this, but I hope it's going to come because make them pretty huge. It's right at already, that's right already. But it looks very and it was like with inflatable incoming

big side protect out like an airbag of a car. And yeah, and there's too much technique for stuff, Yeah, but little. Who did this and how? It was just a protest. It was a project with inflatable from a company and they tried it for a few flights, a few tests and then put it away. For now, it's the time has involved the technology. They can fit it into a helmet and make it quick enough that it inflates before you fall off your bike. That tells me we're in a completely different level, so it would be amazing. It would be great if that if that happened and it works and I

think that it's too hard to get because on if you're on a motorbike, you have your movements and if you have really this how to measure this, the way I get the status from that you are not just doing a spin landing maybe and then you have a little bit of but something. I'm not saying it's easy to build it. I think this is the future. You know the skydivers, they have this for years already and it's obligatory to have this thing called a, A.

When you fall too fast, too low, there's an explosive that goes on and it triggers your reserve. And it's obligatory to have in most drop zones. And I think that's the future for our protectors. So we can make them pretty small. And we need a very intelligent harness, probably with artificial intelligence that can separate from the spin landing or from swooping or just coming down fast in a spiral or whatever, that it doesn't deploy by accident, but really only when it needs. And I think that's going to be the challenge, but hopefully. We tried, we tried something developed like that, like we tried to develop for safety training already 1015 years ago.

We tried to do something like a Cypress for power cutting. If you get too low with the sink rate that automatically your rescue gets thrown up. But it was too hard to build and too dangerous. Yeah. So you mean misfires were basically not enough data points to make it accurate enough? Yeah, and you have to adjust it on the on the lake where you are. And then if there's something wrong and you fly out to the lake and then system decide to, oh, I get the wrong data and so, OK, it's not that nice. So it was the idea it worked, but we couldn't give a warranty that it only works.

What was the firing mechanism like? Did you have like gas canister CO2 ones which were? It was like with a little CO2, Yeah, and a little parachute. What's connected to the handle? So like a pilot? The handle get which goes out, yeah, like a pilot shoot, yeah. Yeah, that's very interesting because Sapir is Sorry, Benny, did I stop you from? Yeah, no, I fully agree. I think it's difficult to do. I've learned to work with electronics and I don't think it's easy but come on. We have self driving cars. They drive safer than V human. Look at what our phones can do. We might as well be able to

develop a fucking airbag that deploys before we hit the ground. That's my opinion. I I think is coming out with Sky Mate and I don't know how long or later will it take for them to have a commercial production ready for any of the audiences who was interested to listen to that. Just head over to the show index. You will see I had a very informative chat with Romain Baht telling me I hope I'm saying his name correctly. They put in a lot of sensors in the wing, also in the harness. Although the whole setup is going to cost ridiculously more. But obviously life is just

generally expensive so if money gives you more safety then why not? But they were able to collect shit loads of data points. I'm not able to recall the amount of number, but it was mind blowing the amount of data points they were collecting per second. So I think evolution of sports, and this is what I really want to talk before we close for the day is like over a period of time. If we look at the pattern, the way free flight has developed itself, it's very interesting how more or less gliding sports have evolved fairly more quickly than the falling ones. And what I mean to say by that

is Hang Gliding came in with the first rigid structure, fixed wing structures which were floating. And then they got into collapsible links like paragliders, which got further better and they went into open back to triple C and now into sports or two liners and those kind of things. Skydiving on the other hand, has remained same started from Rogallo or round went into a bit more, but it's still a similar kind of motion. And commercial aviation, again, fixed wings, of course, they've gotten evolved in their own way. I'm very curious to see how hybrid wing technology is coming where they're saying the wings will have flex in them for commercial aviation.

But talking about paragliding because that is the closest relatable sport to paragliding right now, which is the new technology that we are exposed to. Is this something that because to me, any technology, any technological advancement depends upon the adaptability of the sport. So if there's a larger target audience, that means there's larger money to be made, which means there are larger investors willing to come in and explore that. What I've seen is parakriting seems to have been adopted much faster than anything else. Speed flying did have its own day. I'm not going to lie, it was quite a cool thing when it came and it did rule the adrenaline junkies for quite a while.

But eventually parakriting is targeting a whole mixture of target audience. There are like kiters coming in and exploring it, parallelizers of course because it is coming from the same family. Skydivers are coming in. So is this domain that we are looking at where it is easier to collect more data points because of its mass adaptability comparatively and also its limited flight envelope like in paralleling, the possibilities are endless. There is still air, there is turbulent air, there is more turbulent and then it's cross country over different kind of terrain. Whereas the flight envelope of a para para kite is very limited. You go from point A to point B

in one single soaring Ridge. So let's say if you want to collect a data point at dune deploy, you map the terrain, for example, it's like an F1 track. You put in all the kind of permutation and combinations. And then you start gathering the stuff for the required R&D. What do you guys have to say about that? What do you mean of data points? I don't really understand you. Automating solutions basically where you are able to find more safe alternatives such as the technology that we were just discussing and it is all about giving algorithms accurate learning models where they can reference to and understand how the flight path or how it is,

they can predict it a lot better. In paragliding, as Heli said, there were too many conflicting results which were confusing the algorithms and that's why the accuracy was not guaranteed. So in paragliding, since it's a limited flight envelope, of course, I'm not saying that you can't take it into different mountains, but let's say most of the practitioner of the sport are flying it at a certain place in set conditions. So the variables are a lot less. That means we can deliver the accuracy more for the algorithms to train themselves on, and that's why we can have more predictable results which eventually help us make the sport safer. I think in para cutting it

becomes a lot more difficult. I think for cross country flying I could, I'd be happy to have a harness that deploys the airbag whenever I get lower than to meet with that fact in my head. I just know, OK, whatever I do, I just, I need to make sure I have two meters otherwise my airbag deploys. And then I think it's easy to make the hard to make it smart enough that it doesn't deploy. When you go on land at the end park, I think you are flying close to the ground all the time. That's the whole point of the park. If you want to be close and

safe, you take a park. If you want to just float up in the wind with a paraglider, you don't need to paraglide and you turn, you get a lot of speed and sync and the very last moment before you hit the ground, you just pull the brakes and swoop. So I think you've become a lot harder to to fit that system into the parakaiting. I mean that was just one deliverable that I was saying. But general let's say let's just forget about the that as a deliverable. But commercial viability, Benny, do you think commercially parakaiting is a lot more viable than what we have had in any

other form of free flight until now in aviation? Do you mean that it's going to grow bigger than paragliding one day maybe? And revenue generations where R&D can be a bit more specialized than what we have currently. Oh, for sure. Yeah, I'm sure park hiding is here to stay. It's not going to disappear. Everyone who has had ever a nice soaring session on the park height, I think truly understands and appreciates the park height. And yeah, I think it's growing fast, but I think there's anything it takes time. There's a lot of pilots that fly D gliders that still be like, oh, I'd never touch a paroxide

such a dangerous thing. It's funny. It's a way safer and easier, but that takes time. That's a bit of like that the avalanche. It is rolling, but it takes time to to start rolling and become bigger. And then there's other people that have never touched a paraglider and be like that shit looks cool. I'm going to throw myself into that. Kite surfers or people that not even kite surf and just go do it because they like it. And I think it's a good chance of bringing new people into the sport. And obviously we all know we should all do more ground handling as a beginner. And when you come in from a park hiding side and you spend a lot

of time on the coast, a lot of time also ground handling and flying on the coast it I think it's very good for your skills. You're absolutely not a pilot yet in in the Alps. There's so many things you have to learn, there's so many things you're missing, but I think you have a very solid base because you've spent so much time on the coast in the wind. That is going to help you progress in the mountains as well. I think I'll let you come in, Haley, but I think more or less the END glider, END pilots shying away is just a generational thing. For example, hang gliders. Comparatively, I would be like

these are stupid youngsters out there who are going out and flying collapsible wings. I would rather be on a rigid style wing which gives me a lot more safer. So as soon as the generation grows old, the next ones who are coming up are definitely adopting much more in an acceptable manner which contributes to a faster growth. I would say I might be talking this ahead of my time, but I have been thinking about this deep and hard and I wouldn't be surprised if in two or three decades from now paragliding kind of goes extinct. Just the Hang Gliding way where it's only the old guys giving it a shot and then every younger

guy is like just ripping it as to ground everywhere possible on the kites. I don't see that. No, I don't see that as well. But I I saw myself that what you say Benny like fly CCCD or no para kite is too dangerous. I found myself 1 1/2 year ago. It is. And for me was like, I didn't see the sense for myself to use it in the Alps. OK. And then I flowed. That's a fair point. Yeah, and then and then and I flowed in Boustache and with 4045 kilometers per hour and Monteba crazy. Anytime you put your hands up and it's OK if you stay about 40

kilometers per hour with your normal wing there, say you're fucked. OK, But yeah, it's still work. And then I float the then I float the line, the 15. And I nearly hit the small trees after the takeoff because I don't forgot that you shouldn't put your hands up all the way after takeoff. I think some experience of it and I was very skeptical until this winter time. I flow a lot of Barakites on the dunes in the media as well, like the high calls from the French ones, writers expected ratios and stuff like that. Then and then I really changed my mind to the swings and I see there a potential as well.

If they're just thinking about a few tickets further and say, OK, what happened if we change the speed bar way to like this reflex part on the brakes. If you find the riser who has the sterile point and just pushing up to activate the speed bar like the reflex to use that and I think that's probably something what we will see in the future expected ratio wings with a super solid stable profile. What's controllable on the hands with the Frank rim. If you can go 6570 with just put your hands up and immediately you can change your profile down from the geometrics. That would be amazing in the end and I think some prototypes of

this flying already and it will change a lot if that happened because a lot of stuff we see in the para kinds like the connection point of the brake lines, like I think flare do it as well. The support that the trailing edge, the connection point of the brakes about 654 centimetres inside the canopy to avoid collapses and that we already see the two line apart that take it as well. That's not to avoid collapses. Oh, but in the 2 lines. Yeah, but just increase the brake pressure with it. Yeah. And in the two liners, they put it a little bit inside and this way it provides a little bit the

collapse in the two liners. Brake. No, it doesn't have anything to do with the, it's just the brake pressure. If you move the brakes away from the treading edge towards the leading edge, they become a lot harder. So you can use that on a wing that has a kind of a soft stall point and you want it to be a little bit harder. You see a warning before it stalls. That's why we have it on the. Yeah, yeah. No, but there's it can see this, but I saw it a lot on 2 liners now as well. They do the same maybe to reduce the pressure. Which one? But I think the the no, we have

it in the normal 2 liners as well. Mint have it as well or stone did it? I think so. On some wings, the mint handed, yeah, yeah. And but it makes it makes it a little bit harder to stall these wings than the fly back. They're more. Heavier, yeah. Yeah, and different shrinking on the trailing and the end of the trailing and but as well it like because I tried it and to put some back in and this like the collapsing a wing over a brake input, right with the ratio behind what happened on the speed bar. If you can speed on 2 lines on the brakes it collapse. This has happened as well with

without speed bar in a lot of wings. If the wing stays in the wrong angle of attack and depending on the pendulum and when you change the brakes a little bit to this, it provides this on the stand. And that can be helpful. And this is this is for sure helpful because there's not that much lift anymore if you go on the break and it makes it a little bit more difficult in the stall point and but it's good in the end. And if we get if we get wings in the future, just normal paraglider, they are able to stall but not any more able to fly backwards would be a safer

part because. I think so, yeah. Yeah, if we can create wings, they are not flying backwards anymore. It's like there are some birds that can do that. They can. What means speed? Enough English. Feathers the. Feathers, they get pushed up, they can stall but not flying like backwards. And if you can create something like that so it means you can stall your wing but you cannot fly backward anymore. If you can't fly backwards, OK, you can't do a super todo infinite but. But it doesn't get hard to stall out pick rats. Yes, the that's the thing, yeah. That's the downside, yeah, that's. The downside, but as well, they're hard to forward.

The big stuff, it's most created on the stall before and in the moment when the wing starts creating a lift flying backwards. And that makes a big bundle difference between the wing and the pilot. The pilot and this makes the heart shoot. And if you have a wing, you can stall down. Or maybe you just can't let fly your ears backwards, you know, I don't know. And I fully agree. Like for example, on the Bandit we have from Flare, you take a Bandit 22, aspect ratio 7.1. It's the easiest wing to stall. You put your hands down all the way. It doesn't do a horseshoe because we designed it so it

stalls as a block. You go all the way down, you keep them down any moment you want. You let go the brakes. This thing shoots forward a little bit, it inflates again. The reflex stops it. It doesn't collapse. Yeah, that's right. And this is what I think could be the future. Tell a student to stole that thing. You need to be fine. I know, and this will be for me maybe a future, but it's maybe not power guiding disappear. It's maybe we get the mixture up of it. Yeah, if we get. But if we get something like that out, it's only the problem. Just let it go.

It's not a good idea anymore. The power guide. Yeah, I flow like this. Honestly, I don't see this mix for paragliding. I absolutely love the kite risers. They have so many advantages, the strong airfoils anyway. But we can also use a lot of reflex on the paragliders and there's more and more paragliders that have reflex. There's quite a few 2 liners now where you can hang on the A's and on the ground and let them overshoot in front of you and they float back. There's a couple of those now, but when I fly in turbulent air in in cross country conditions I want to be on A2 liner.

For me a 2 liner is the only thing where I feel like I'm 100% able to control the angle of attack and keep my wing open all the time when I'm going to para kite. Even though this has more reflex, it's more collapse stable. On A2 liner you do this and it's stable. On a para kite you have to pull 1/2 a meter and that takes a lot longer time and you are not directly connected with the wing and this doesn't feel very good to me. So I compare this like with ski boots and skis. Flying a parakeet. It's like having a very wide free ride ski with a very soft

touring boot. You still feel a little bit, but you're not 100% in control. It's not so direct to control and the two liner. It's the race ski, very thin ski with a race boot with a very good binding, no pin binding, very solid, very direct connection. You are straight away connected to your ski like you are 100% in control of the edge of your ski boot. And to fly in this very turbulent air all the time, I think we need the 2 lines. I don't see any other possibility. On the other hand, I don't see why parakite should be two liners. I don't see a point that it just doesn't make sense to me.

Oh, I'm not talking about the. I suggest that we can take experience from this parakite. Well, how to do it, the reaction of the wing, which possibilities are and I we could see what the future brings up. I'd love to have paragliders. I'm with you, Hallie. I'd love to have the paragliders being a safe of the Park Heights like this foolproofness, like you can stall it and it makes steeps only go hands up when it flies again. Like it's there's less problems with collapses, but see hydrazer system for paragliders yet. Yeah, yeah, I'd love to have it, but I just don't see it happening. What do you guys think about

welding techniques? Do you think that will change a bit of a wing behaviour? Because right now we are just like lines are being tied up to the surface, but if welding comes in then it's a bit more clean profile. Have you heard about? That I think we are just low. Yeah, I have the problem. But I think we are in 2 slow speed ranges that we really get that much out of it. That's what I think. It's just maybe idea. Very interesting discussion. Guys, I don't know too much about that. It's basically attachment points which are like are not, no, not attachment like I think the

suing of what do you say? Yeah, yeah. And sure, you but this one and then it you have two parts what you have to bring together anyway. So if you stitch it or if you do it or whatever, there will be all time a little bit of ratio stuff like that maybe brings a little bit. But if I think if I watch like Ozone with the end to three, since I think they develop in 2016 I think and now we have 2026 and they're still with the end to three show some upgrades and stuff like that. But if there will be something that much better that will

release it anytime there is an end to four what I hear, but I think the N 2 is a benchmark since they bring it out the N23 and if there will be that much in they will develop something new. I don't know how true this is, maybe I should refrain from saying it out loud in the public domain, but there's a very famous designer who said that Enzo 3's of today fly different than Enzo 3's that was certified like 7 years ago. I think it's that old of a design, and that is, is the certification invalid then? Because the Enzo 3 just keeps on setting the new benchmark for

itself year after year? But yeah, debatable. Maybe the welding might make it cheaper one day, or maybe the welding helps to make it more accurate. That would be nice. So all the wings go straight. There's a lot of high aspect ratio Gladys that don't fly straight. Is that so?

That don't go straight if. You change the harness, fly straight again. Yeah, it was like some harness system, wasn't it? Wasn't able to fly straight. Endless topics to talk about when both of people of your knowledge are coming on. But we do have to call it a day sometime. But before we do so, I want to throw a fancy word at our audience. I'm sitting on a Wikipedia page right now, maybe I can share my screen. It's called metacognition. The textbook definition of metacognition is an awareness of 1's thought process and understanding of the patterns behind them. I do understand we might have spoken a little bit about this earlier already a lot of times,

but just for the sake of it, maybe we can kind of bookmark this for those audience members who are just wanting to tune in for something like this. This one also to keep it simple, I can try and give take a dictionary meaning of it, which means that it is a cognitive bias that describes the systematic tendency of people with low ability in a specific area to give overly positive assessments of their ability. It also refers to the tendency of high performance to underestimate their skills, which is on the other end of spectrum. But let's look at this graph for now. Here it says confidence and here

it says competence, and then there's a red line of valley of despair. I eek of ignorance. I get that's, that's what I can say. That's what I have in every safety training. After the training, I think I know everything. And then yeah, yeah, after the training, I know everything of this week now and then I've fallen the valley of disappearing and the start the next training and I was thinking, fuck, I know nothing. That's really, that's really exactly that how I started training because all in the studies I know nothing and I'm sitting there six hours, 7 hours of the day evening before before I'm starting the training.

So fuck, I know nothing, I know nothing. And then I start together with the group to explore it again and then comes again to this. I know everything is back a little bit down and that's what I see in every training. I can imagine, but like let's say if if I want to you know, pinpoint the discussion around this topic because again, this is a very open-ended one out of the spectrum of pilots that you guys see. You know many from beginners to I think same can be said for you heli as well, from like 3 liner pilots on mid beast to two liner ones who are pushing the limits

at the top line. Is there a way that you can pinpoint yourself on this map accurately throughout your flying career? Where you don't have to go to the highs and lows if you don't want to. And as we see on the right side, there's a true expert knowledge change is the only constant in life. So I'm not saying that you stick around this all your time, but let's say accurately predicting your trajectory on a Dunning Kruger effect. What would you guys have comments on that before we close for the day? I definitely went through this. I would say maybe not as extreme as others did, but for sure, yeah, went through that.

How did? How was? The discovery like I was the I do it all the I'm the same. Yeah. Hey, coming back to this stunning critical effect and to your question, I think in paragliding it's a good thing to fly a lot and spend a lot of hours. When you when you go into speed flying or maybe into paragliding when let's say you wouldn't have to work and this is all you can do and you just do this all the time. I think then you are much more likely to get overconfident. It's kind of easy. It's not so scary both of it. You are close to the ground, you

don't fly too much in turbulence. I think in speed flying it can be an advantage if you have some breaks in between a couple of months where you don't fly, you know, for example, because it's spring and it's very thermic and then you go back to it and then it feels kind of fast again. And you were like, oh wow, this shit is fast. And it stops you a little bit from being overconfident. And I think as well for BASE jumping. But if you would go and speed fly every day, then this would start to feel very normal. And when it feels too normal, it becomes dangerous. And maybe it's a little bit the

same as park hiding because you're fast, it's easy and you start to lose maybe the respect of it. And then obviously it becomes dangerous. And when it comes to flying cross country thermalling, that always includes turbulence. And turbulence is scary. And we all have fear up there sometimes and some acknowledge that and some say they're never scared, which I never believe. But maybe that turbulence, that fear it, you know, like helps to not become overconfident as much as you do with speed flying paroxide. And I'm sure it's kind of similar with ultra flying. It's a very interesting topic because a practice makes a man perfect kind of a thing or a

woman as well. No discrimination is usually the key. And about taking breaks because too much of anything is bad. I completely agree that like you can get stuck in your head or be it whatever. Overtraining is a very real thing and systematic fatigue sets in. Accumulative fatigue is, is also a real performance rater. So if one can be aware of this, but I think this is where I can ask Heli to come in on the closing comments. Heli coming in on stalls or anything like that. Is there a sweet number of stalls that a person can do or going above or below that number can be counterproductive or extra productive that you that

you have seen from your ears of SLV training? I'm not sure if this is sweet number. The amount of stalls, let's say 100 full stalls on a wing will make. You feel amount of numbers, what you should do like a friend of mine, like somebody say one time, just do it until you do it. You like to do it. It's not like that. You can go out there with leg and so you want super scared of it that you can get out there and say, OK, now let's stall it with a good feeling. And it's not to do the full stall. It's the stall point again.

And so some people get this feeling maybe about overconfidence, OK, too early and say now I know how to do it. But if we got stomach feeling to do it and I cannot say to 101,000 or whatever, I think there are some people they can do 10,000 that would not learn it. It looks like if you in the same curve what we talked before, I get a lot of people like coming to me and say hey heli, I want to learn heli. It's not and I'm sorry. But when they're struggling with the parachute and then I let the learn stalls again, change the mindset of it and automatically

they end up in the parachute and then the step to start spinning the helico is just a small point so they can train 100 more stalls like they did. They will not come further have been effort and so as well as to start thinking what can I change to make it better? The same now I know it there's a no, it doesn't work. OK, let's go again to understand what I'm doing. And as soon as you start try to get better, you're still in the stone. So there's no number. Guys, closing comments, if you have to make safety a habit, some baseline things that you should inculcate in your flying before we call it a day.

I still think for me the choice of wing is one of the most important. The choice of the wing class when it comes to cross country flying is one of the most important things for your safety and if you know you can step up or not, it's pretty simple as long as you have collapses. Just don't step up. Once you manage to fly 200 kilometers in a single day without collapses, maybe then you can step up. If you follow that rule, I think people will be a lot safer. That's such a good explanation. Or yeah, 200 OK, not collapsing on the same wing and still pushing the bar up to a point that you are able to go 200 in

one. So it's quite a skill which will keep you safe or on the next generation. Ellie, your thoughts before we call it today? If you have no collapses anymore and you can use your potential, you can fly your wing on speed bar. You can use the full potential of the wing. That's the right time step up. As long as you're struggling on your low B wing to fly more than four hours, you don't have to step up on the B wing on the high B wing. Maybe another thought is like what do you want to step up even more? Like the other day I flew with

my Sino and I was so tired. It was so demanding and I noticed how being a 5, it's so easy. I'm like why do I do this to myself? For this 5% more performance, I take 3 times more risk. I make it 10 times more stressful. Is that worth it? Do I have one time? I'm not sure. I think you you mentioned it pretty well that the step up based on your ability and not based on your dreams in in the pre show notes that we were exchanging. So your dreams will make you towards a lot of decisions. But to be honest with yourself, and this is almost impossible to sum up our two hour gem of a

conversation. But if I have to take away, if I have to talk about some takeaways, just fear is a good thing if it's healthy. Gives you a lot of intuition which you should listen to based on which your decision making should look like. Social pressure on group dynamics will exists at any given pilot's career stage or take off. Be it pushing full war in a gaggle full of triple CS, or be it launching your first few flights on a hill full of beginner pilots. That is not going to change. So that means the Dunning Kruger effect where you go into to the peak of ignorance, which I know

everything, then to a value of despair, I don't know nothing and slope enlightenment to true expert knowledge will come and go in your life. That is part of being a human pilot and just try and identify healthy versus unhealthy confidence signs. There are enough emotional and psychological triggers that give you the headlines. And I think a little bit of coaches or instructors responsibility also lies on how to balance the expectations from the student where they can stretch them to push their limits, but also teach them to know their limits when they're by themselves. And then just figure out tools for building mental training, which is helpful in either

coming back to the sport or walking away from the sport if shit hits the fan one day. Because eventually, communication, commitment and clarity and honesty will decide how you take the take to the skies when you want to. That's about it, all right. Happy flying everyone. I'll. Be flying everyone. Thank you guys. This was longer than expected, but I think holy freaking lolly, this has to be one of the most informative and unfiltered episodes we have had on the show. And you guys have been the most loved guests. And that's why I decided to bring you both together because I was like, repeat lessons were just reaching skyrocket rocketing numbers on your solo

episodes. And I was like, you know what? It's about time you create some awesomeness together. So in my heart. You guys, thank you.