Navigating Australia : Godfrey Wenness

one of the lines got caught around the kangaroo's leg as he started hopping away. And of course, then the glider was chasing the kangaroo. The pilot wasn't connected anymore. So you can imagine the kangaroos looking over his shoulder going, oh shit, this big colorful thing is now chasing me, realizing that it's got a line caught around its leg. And then all the other kangaroos started running away as well. And he's going, well, I'm out of here too. But the glider was still chasing it. The very strong, localized, Dust Devil style climbs, like a very violent climb that's been sitting there on a super adiabatic day, just boiling and boiling,

waiting to get released. It's not as stressful to fly here as it is in big alpine conditions, for example. The farmer goes, oh, where did you just drop in from? What plane did you jump out on? I said, I've come from Manila. And he goes, what, the fucking Philippines? He couldn't believe it. Like he didn't even know Manila, New South Wales, Australia existed. You know, if there's one thing that I think every single pilot

Aninder: on this planet will unanimously agree on is that when we get into the sport of paragliding, the allure of sky is so compelling that almost every one of us dreams of turning it into a way of life. I mean, who doesn't want to give up the regular 9-5 in lieu of chasing airtime instead? And today's guest on our show exemplifies this journey. A perfect illustration of how hard work and perseverance can unfold the glory that lies within the art of flight. I mean, he didn't just make a living from his passion. He elevated the sport by welcoming newcomers and dedicated his life and passing on the knowledge to the next generation. And to top it off, like, how many of us can even claim the luxury of owning a

Aninder: paragliding site or a takeoff? And this guy doesn't just own one takeoff. Instead, he owns four of them in every single wind direction. To be more precise, he owns the entire mountain, if I'm honest. With 16,000 hours and counting, a former world record holder and a long time test pilot for Advance, let me introduce to you the one and only Godfrey Venice. Operating from his centre down under in Manila, he has trained thousands of pilots while helping them meet their expectations and exceed their aspirations. Godfrey has been instrumental in shaping the paragliding scene in Australia for a very long time. So join us as he provides an in-depth understanding of navigating the skies of Manila,

a journey enriched with his wealth of experience and passion for the sport.

Godfrey Venice, what an absolute honor to finally have you on Paragliding Atlas. Thank you so much for coming. It means the world. Welcome. Great to be here with you, Aninda, from the other side of the world where it's 40 degrees at the moment and you guys have got a little

bit on the negative side, I think. That is correct. We are blessed with snow. I think that is the most positive way to look at it, but it comes with

Aninder: its own darkness and negative degrees, as you said. But how is life down under? I heard you said weather phenomenas are going pretty crazy these days. Just to let our listeners know, this podcast and episode is being recorded in December. So what's going on? What have we missed? We just

had a couple of months of pretty average good XC for here. I wouldn't have said any mega distances like around the 250 mark because it's been pretty good. And it was a drought, of course. We had no rain for nearly five months. And that just broke two days ago. So it's been a little bit wet since then. But look, after such a long period of great weather, we sort of expect to have some rain at some point. And that's when it's just arrived now in time for Christmas to cool things down a little bit. Well, that kind of sounds nice. But is this a common thing every year, every

Aninder: other year? Or is this like something like climate change coming in and playing its role? No, not at all. It's just a typical variation cycle

that you see, like the Bureau of Meteorology called for a El Nino situation, which of course it didn't happen. Well, it happened in a very small way, but then it rained as well. So it's not supposed to rain during El Nino. So it was a very weak one. I think everyone's a bit hypersensitized to the climate change concept. You know, there's just more public reporters out there with their iPhones. Doing a lot of shots of crazy weather and everyone is a bit sensitized to seeing a lot of it on the media and social media. When in reality, it's, you know, when you've been in it, I had just another cycle and it's the same as what we had in 2007 and back in 98 and back in 01 or 91 and so on. So it's the same thing repeated

over and over again. Well, glad to hear nothing is going way too crazy, but thank you for clarifying, you know. But anyway, just to get started,

Aninder: Godfrey, what does Australia look like for paragliding? I mean, I was just on X contest and I was just looking at sites and there were like so many places to take off and, you know, like to make good distance, like people have been smashing 200 to 400 at an average. Can you just give us a bit of an idea, like what does Australia offer in terms of cross country to paragliders? The continent itself is much larger than Western

Europe, as you'll probably be aware. It stretches all the way from the Black Sea, for example, all the way to the UK and from Norway down to northern parts of Africa and Morocco. So it covers a very large area and that also covers a lot of different climate areas as well. So you've got the tropics in the north where not much paragliding action happens apart from coastal. You've got the temperate, mid-temperate areas. around the Tropic of Capricorn and Cancer, north and south examples there. Sort of that's where we are here in Manila. And most of the bulk of flying is done in that zone around the 30 degree south latitude. Once you go inland away from the coast, you end up in plains areas or what I call the

slopes and plains. That's up and down the east coast. There's a little bit of that in the west coast as well. Most of the flying, once you're out in the flatlands like we're talking out west of sydney about 500 to 800 kilometers west you'll find that it's only towing of course similar conditions to what you might find in brazil or south africa and even texas for example What occurs there is that because our weather systems are not that reliable in terms of what you might find in Brazil, for example, if you're flying in the classic Exiara places and so on, you know, they get those four weeks where it's epic, no question about it. um here and for example texas you know they have that period in june where

it's it's really on in texas but not every year not every day as well as it depends where the dry line is so what we have here is very similar there except now in our in our sense here not just in manila but anywhere inland uh from the east coast There isn't really a month you can say where it's the month like they would say in Brazil or they would say in Texas or South Africa. Here, it can be any time really from October through to March, and then it's more day length related in that sense. So when I did the world record in 98, it was in the middle of November, which was great this

year as well. But a month later, it was flooding rain. So it was pretty inconsistent. um some other times there's been you know big flights in december and january and february have done three and four hundred k flights so so there isn't it's a it's a little bit hit and miss so you just can't come to oz and expect to have you know that one epic week like they do in other places where they know it's on uh you sort of need to look ahead a little bit and there's been Quite a lot of larger groups come out to go towing and break wood records and they haven't achieved anything

because it just hasn't been the week for it or two weeks for it. So in that sense, I would classify it as relatively unreliable. But if you're on site, then there's certainly a great opportunity to do some distances if you can pick the weather systems correctly. I see. Wow. Well, thank

Aninder: you so much for explaining it so brilliantly. I think that covered up a lot of questions that I had. Now I'm kind of running out of topics to discuss. Anyways, just out of curiosity, I mean, as you said that coming in as a foreigner and planning your holiday or whatever, you know, flying in advance is a bit of a question, but as a local... How long ahead can you predict good weather? Or how long ahead can you see that, okay, this window looks really reliable. And now I can take a break off work or from family or whatever it is that keeps you busy. And then I can just go

out and hammer it every other day. Yeah. Okay. So it's very seasonal as well, because sometimes like if we have a La Nina or an El Nino season,

then that prediction will differ, of course. So that's something that I wouldn't like to give everyone a rule of thumb for. But let's say it was an average year, we could easily pick the conditions a week or two ahead. because what you need to look for is you know how much rain has there been previously if it's been dry or not sometimes the summers can be when they're very very dry like we just had you might end up getting blue days every day which are not really that fantastic for doing big xc's uh but in saying that um when i have done some larger flights i've been on blue days

So you don't really have to have clouds on the big days. It makes you get more tactical with your classic concepts of ground sources and so on rather than getting distracted by clouds. A lot of people, when they end up with clouds, they put too much theory into practice and they go slow, relatively speaking. There's always there is a weather pattern that we see on the east coast that is quite reliable. That's when you have a very large high pressure system sitting in the centre of Australia, punching some sort of southwest southerly winds through the eastern half, maybe with a light troughing system on the eastern half as well, just in front of the front. So when we get that set up and it's very

distinct, that's when all the big flights have been done. So they've generally been with a southwest to south to southeasterly flow across the eastern half of Australia. That brings on some moisture off the Tasman Sea and off the southern coast areas over the ranges. And when we talk about ranges, we're not talking about Alpine Europe ranges or even what you have in play. We're talking about little mountains that are about 1,000 metres high, but it's 4 kilometres long. So... So we do have a bit of a weather difference there between the coast and inland. And when that moisture comes in with those wind directions southwest to south to southeasterly, depending on where you are, it does bring cloud streets

and just the absolute classic stuff that you read about in the magazines. that everyone is really chasing for. But, you know, you get those days, you can get a week of that in a row, but again, it's hit and miss, you can't plan for it. You can look at the forecast charts and have a fairly good guess. So I would suggest to answer your question, succinctly, seasonally dependent, we could predict good weather about seven to 10 days ahead, how the patterns have been working out and how dry the ground is as well. Thank you for explaining that so

Aninder: beautifully. I just wish flight tickets were affordable seven to 10 days in advance. It's just that it's such an expensive expedition to go down to Australia and you have to book so many months in advance to make sure it's affordable. What's the beauty, Aninda, is that technically

you could pick any time from November through to March and say you're going to come for two weeks or maybe three weeks, for example. You can always be mobile and move around to an area. Like if we've got not such good weather in this part of New South Wales where I am, sort of north of Sydney, then Victoria quite often has got great weather. And then when they've got really bad weather, lots of fronts going through and wet weather happening, then it's really good up here. So you can switch from the, there's basically three classic areas to go flying. We're talking about, you know, big distance flying as opposed to just doing local triangles or so on. So you've got the, you know, the Victorian New South

Wales border areas, Central West New South Wales, and up here in the Northwest of New South Wales. So they're the three main areas. And between those, you will, one of them will always be firing off for sure. regardless of what the other ones are doing. Oh, well, that's

Aninder: encouraging. All right, so just book the ticket regardless because there is good flying happening somewhere down under. You got it. That's

the idea. And if you get caught out, you can always go to the coast and hang around on the beach and do some coastal flying and look at all the girls in bikinis or boys, depending on what you're into. And... Sounds like a good life. I'm just curious while we're talking about weather, what are

Aninder: the best places or websites to look for the forecast? I mean, of course, windy is a universal thing, but do you guys have something specific which sends out like Australian Meteorology Department or something like that, which sends out specific alerts that paragliders over there follow? Yeah, look, most people use Windy. I'm a Meteo Blue fan myself. You've also got SkySight, which the gliders tend to use. I mean, it

requires a subscription model, as you're aware of. They're all very accurate, actually. But the thing is, once you go inland, because it's flatlands and there's a whole different convection system going on just between where I'm sitting and 100 kilometres away to the west. And it's very hard for them to pick that on the models because of the resolution of the models. So you could end up in a, like having a fantastic day along the ridges here and hitting the flatlands and suddenly it's very dead out there and it's stable. So you'll end up in a situation where the models have shown it to be very good around where you're launching from, but where you're going to end up four hours

later, it actually dies off very quickly and you get to the mid-afternoon point and you say, what's happened to the day? So you end up not having as big a day as you expect. But yeah, the models generally are fairly accurate. I mean, for example, I use Meteo Brew and it gives you some percentages of accuracy into the future. And after three or four days, it drops off rapidly down to 20% and below most of the time. I find models are very good at predicting bad weather. You can easily predict when the front is coming through or how a trough is going to set up seven to 10 days ahead. But to pick very good soaring thermaling style weather for cross-country flying, they're It can give you a broad scale

idea of what you're looking for, but nothing beats being on the site at the time and ready to go at 10.30 in the morning when the first thermals come up. Indeed, indeed. I think today we are talking about your own site, Mount Bora, which I believe has been pretty much developed

Aninder: single-handedly by you in all its glory. So just for the perspective of our listeners, if you can just give them some idea of what Mount Bora is all about. And basically, if you touch down in Sydney or Melbourne or any one of the international airports, how do you make your way over there?

Yeah, for sure. So, you know, we're about four and a half hours by car northwest of Sydney on what's called the northwest slopes and plains. So the advantage here is that you can get away in the morning earlier because you've got some slopes to deal with or small ridges and hills, which is where the takeoff is Mount Borah. uh it's its own plateau it's got four sides so you can take off in all wind directions pretty well all wind directions and that gives you an advantage for launching a bit earlier compared to say just going towing out on the flatland so we can we can start an hour or two before the tow guys get going and also fly to the flatlands when it's really on or choose to fly some flats in between the

the ridges here a little bit like what you get in petro heater in You know, you start off on the ridges and then you end up in the flats later on when you do some flying there, as an example. So it's a very similar concept, except the mountains aren't as big. So coming from Sydney, you're going to be, you know, travelling up either via car or you can take a train directly to Manila. It's about a 60-hour train journey. It leaves daily, you know, early in the morning around about 9.30. From Sydney, you can catch the... From the airport, actually, you can take the metro directly to Central Station and meet up with the train. All in one go, so it's quite, and it's very cheap as well. So that's a way to get here.

Another way is, of course, Aquanis and the other airlines flying from all the major capital cities into Tamworth, which is about a 45-minute flight from Sydney. Then from there we organise airport pickups. On site here, you know, my facility has cabins and a camping area, you know, swimming pool bar, Wi-Fi, all the things you expect, guest kitchens and so on. So, you know, you can turn up just yourself with nothing but your glider, buy some food at the supermarket and self-cater or some people turn up with camper vans and it ends up being, over summer we have quite a lot of people here, somewhere between 50 and 100 on good days or good weeks when there's quite a lot of holiday action going on. The site

itself can handle it quite well, you know, the very large areas of takeoff that we've got plus up areas you know they don't we handle 200 pilots on board and you know regular events with 150 so it's not a case of it being congested at all you know people take off at different times um some take off in less wind and give it a go as a wind dummy others wait till it's really on and for others to climb so so in that sense the site itself is pretty versatile compared to many other places where where you end up having a bit of a tighter situation with maybe two or three launch spots.

We can put 15 gliders on launch or 20 gliders on launch at one time and pretty well have 20 take off in the space of 30 seconds, allowing for traffic. So it's easily done. in that sense. So we're about 10 minutes drive from the nearest little town, which is Manila. And there's pilots going backwards and forwards all the time. So technically you don't need a car when you come here to fly Mount Bora. A lot of the pilots also just hitchhike to come back from retrieve. So that's one aspect of it as well. There's a very good road network here. Most of the cross country lines follow the main roads in each cardinal direction. And that gives them an opportunity to hitchhike back. We also run WhatsApp group chats

for various activities. You know, the weather and chat one is one, for example. But there's also one for the transport to the top of the hill and another one, which is a retrieve one. So whenever people have got retrieves happening, they jump on the WhatsApp group and say, hey, I've got a spare seat coming back from, you know, Warialda, 120 k's away. And someone will jump on there and go, yeah, I just landed near there. Give me a ride back if you can. and so on. So it sort of coordinates very well in a very organic sense. And that's quite nice that everyone's taking that on board and offering seats in cars as they've got them available. And people integrate like that very, very well. So aside from that, the

mountain itself has four takeoffs, which you're probably aware of, landing areas all around. So it doesn't make it very convenient. You can get back up very quickly. That's one of the advantages of having a mountain with lots of roadworks around it or road around it is that you don't have to do a massive drive to get back up. You can virtually, once you've landed and packed, it's only a 10-minute drive back to the top again from whichever side you're on, which is quite handy compared to some other sites in Australia which take a lot longer to get back from as well. So there's that aspect too. But I'll let you ask a few more questions. I'm probably overrunning your question sheet at the moment

there, Inder. No, no, no. The thing is, you're checking out so many topics that were there, because WhatsApp was one of the things that I

Aninder: wanted to discuss. And it's such a blessing to have such a facility being run by locals, because I was interviewing one of my guests in India, and they have... a similar setup in India where they have these WhatsApp groups where foreign pilots can just join in, offload their curiosity to locals and ask so many questions. So I'll be very thankful if you have a general link or something, which we can put in the show notes for pilots who are interested to come in after the show. And I think that can basically serve as an introductory thing for people looking up to connect with other pilots who are actually going down there and making it happen. But quickly, I wanted to come to the point where you said you

Aninder: can launch 20 gliders in a row, man. Is there any other place in the world that allows you to do that even? I've never heard 20 gliders or a space which caters so big. I mean, the classics, obviously, Annecy in France and Petro, fantastic takeoff areas. There's a lot of sites around the

world that have got large areas to launch from. I mean, another example. So there's plenty of that going on. um around the place ours is a site that um you know it's an inland cross-country based site as opposed to just going for a little local flight so people come here for that so it's nice to be able to lay out a lot of gliders at once and have some shade trees around as well that always helps And, you know, parking directly behind the takeoffs. So you don't have to do a very large walk. Particularly now, a lot of the guys are using like triple C gliders and very large, you

know, submarine style harnesses. So, you know, they got a lot of gear with them. You don't have to walk half a kilometre to get to the takeoff. So it's convenient from that perspective as well. And also, of course, to drive almost a regular car up the mountain and how transport service operates on top of that for people that want that as well. It's such a bliss, honestly, like, you know, coming in with your comp harness

Aninder: perfectly to the takeoff. But, you know, quickly, before we get into the actual flying, how did Mount Borat develop? If you can just give us a small introduction. Like, how did you create all this magic that you have now? There's this thing called the Earth about four billion years

ago. And

a bit of continental plate movement. Yeah. mountain itself during the pre-carboniferous period. If you really need to know, the geology was underwater, and it pushed up above that, so that created the mountain. But aside from that, a couple of hang gliders saw Mount Bora back in the early 90s, and they were flying other sites in the region, like telecom-style tower, road access sites, and they flew in this direction from a place called Tamworth nearby. They saw it, and this was before the internet, of course, so word of mouth got around. I was actually looking for a site at that stage already in the early 90s to start a school and get some flying for myself and just to move out of

Sydney. Heard about this place, already been searching for a year. Did a fair bit of weather research and also facility research. Is it available to buy? Is it even possible to put roads up there and so on? There's a lot of... A lot of technical infrastructure side due to going into that. And that was in sort of 92, 93. We did a season of flying here, of course, to check out to see if it really was possible. My intention originally was to set it up as a cross-country site and to try and break the world record. That was always my plan. So it took about five years to

get to that stage and to practice and just to figure out the weather conditions and where to go and so on. And then in between all that, you know get the bulldozer out build some roads start with some basic takeoffs and then extend the development out from there uh to enlarge and things you know 15 years later for the world championships to have huge takeoffs you know easy access roads large landing areas and so on so it sort of created that uh from from what was nothing into something quite large in an overall sense i don't think anyone's ever done that anywhere on the planet before to buy a mountain and turn it into a paragliding mountain with four takeoffs i mean there's been people

that have buy that have bought launch areas or the hill with a launch on it uh maybe some people have got a landing area but very few would have owned the entire property and uh built you know we built 16 kilometers of roads you know for massive takeoffs landing areas and you know toilets and so on so it's uh it was a big it was a long it's still an ongoing project i find it hasn't stopped yet It just seems like the stuff from the movies, to be

Aninder: honest. I mean, who in real world goes out and says, okay, five years from now, I'm going to break a world record. I'm going to build a whole facility. I mean, I feel like that's a whole another show we should do some other time, you know, like how did you actually make it happen and run it so successfully? It's so inspiring. I mean, just by listening, it's like, wow, that is one way to live a very fulfilling paraglider's life. yeah it's it's basically you know like any you're trying to break any records i mean you've got to just up your skill level of course and be

in the right place at the right time that always helps and uh just practice practice practice you know what can i say that's but as you say it's probably a topic for another podcast um back in those days you know when i've when i flew it was all analog everything you know you had a super basic garmin gps All your flights had to be photographed, so you always had two cameras with data backs on board, declarations signed in person. You know, there was none of this ex-contest stuff happening. If your photos didn't work out, you didn't have a record. You know, it was as simple as that. You had to have witnesses. So, oh, yeah, absolutely. And if anything broke down, like your barograms, was incorrect didn't

switch on at the right time had a gap in the barogram you you lost your record as well so there's quite a few that you know did a lot of good flights so you know over the years and back in those days anyway and missed out due to a technical fault they might have flown a good distance but they certainly missed it so you have to make sure not just that you were flying well but you were able to deal with all the technical issues that the fai required you to have with you the whole time which was always pretty tricky. And of course, you know, we didn't have Google Maps in

either. It was all paper-based. Well, so anyway, we're getting a bit off topic there, isn't it? But it certainly, the site itself has offered, you know, thousands of people personal bests over the last 30 years. And that's what's really cool about it. Like at every level, even the high-end pilots, like Regal came here for the World Championships in 2007. You know, he'd never flown 200Ks. prior to arriving here. And during the practice week, which was the famous week with Ivo getting sucked up to the clouds, miracle in the storm and all that, he did his first ever 200K flight out to the West during the XC Open, just prior to the World Champs. And there was a whole bunch of high-end pilots all from

the various teams, France, Switzerland, Germany, and the Brits, all did their first 200K flights here the week before the Worlds. And we were expecting that to be an unreal week. And then, of course, you've got pilots just at a very novice level with maybe 10 or 15 hours experience. And they do their first little 10 or 20-kilometer flight And that's their personal best as well. So it ranges from the very basic, easy flights that a novice pilot does all the way through to the expert level doing their PBs, but all in relative safety. And it's not as hardcore as some of the places like Texas or parts of Brazil and for sure Africa, where it does get pretty exciting sometimes. Seems like stuff from the

Aninder: dreams, man, to be honest. I mean, if a 10-hour pilot and somebody like Kriegel can go in there and push their own personal limits, it's like, wow, what else do you need in paragliding? But anyways, talking about actual flying, you know, a pilot has managed to navigate his way from Sydney to Manila, and he's found his perfect paradise that you have created for all of us. Once you're at the takeoff, what are the first things that you look out for? Kind of what are the first indicators and first few steps after you're at the takeoff, once you make it in the air?

The best chip I could give everyone at this stage is get someone else to wind dummy for you.

That's always a good sign if someone's climbing, of course. Do you have birds or vultures which are there for wind dummies? Oh, yeah. I mean, for sure there's birds. Yeah, we have the wedge-tailed eagles, there's forks, there's smaller birds of prey as well, which are cruising around. But they don't normally come out until it's really good. So by that stage, you already want to be. But the big mistake that most of the, let's say, foreign pilots make, especially ones that come from alpine areas, is that as soon as they feel a little puff up the face, they expect it to be antibiotic or thermic and they take off and then they do like a very slowly descending ridge-soaring profile, like scratching on the

face of the hill, which at a site like this one here, it just doesn't work. It's either ridge-sorable straight off the bat, like it's doing 15 to 20 kilometres an hour and you can stay up, if it's not doing that you don't hang around on the face of the hill typically in alpine situations you know you're scratching right in against the pine trees looking for little little rocky areas or any open grassy areas to get any little bubble you can get to scratch back up again for us if you when you do that on the side here like we see the swiss and the french turn up here doing

exactly that and then up in the landing paddock very quickly because you've only got four or five hundred play with so the the trick is if you don't get something immediately on launch and you don't have anyone in front of you climbing anywhere you should head out uh out away from the edge of the hill uh towards the flat areas near the landing area in order to find a flatlands climb because if they're not coming up the front of the hill onto the launch or onto the triggering lip of the hill, then they're out the front and they're going vertical if there's not much wind. So that means that the thermals don't actually arrive on the face of the hill. And that's the mistake that they tend to do. They take off,

scratch around on the face. Meanwhile, there's a novice pilot climbing out like a rocket from the landing paddock from quite low. So that would be the main tip. Anytime it's launchable like that is good. Usually on a good day, we'll have a queue or two popping up above the mountaintop, but that doesn't always have to be the case. It's more a case of just observing the wind direction and anticipating where the triggers are based on whether it's straight in or crosswind, depending on which launch we're on. But the main tip is if you don't get anything straight away on the hill, you've got to head out. with as much height conserved to the flat areas where there's the low hills near the landing paddock

where the triggers will be occurring. Do you have anything like a house thermal or something? Because that was the first thing that came to my

Aninder: mind. Like every time you go to a mountain or alpine areas, there's always this massive ridge or a trap or something like that where majority of the takeoffs are going, are heading and gaining their way to cloud base. So do you guys have something like that or is it like widespread and you can just go around and do the searching? Yeah. Yeah, it depends on the wind again. Like if it's light and variable, you won't

actually have anything on the face of the hill normally that you could call a house thermal. They'll be there, but it's very random. Each face, there's four faces, has got its own little micro system going on in terms of very light gullies or spur lines. We're not talking alpine style, but like a micro version of that. So when you've got little spur lines or gullies occurring, they're going to attract some sort of thermal action. If it's in the sun, that's another consideration as well. So if you're launching on the east face, it's a different ballgame to being on the west face too early, as an example, or the north, for example, as well. So one has to consider, you know, the time of day factor, where is

the sun on, you know, what the wind direction is. And each side is very logical in that sense. So if you've got a basic understanding of wind direction and thermal triggers, then you'll look at, for example, the west launch at 11 o'clock in the morning. If the wind's southwest, you'll go immediately to the southwest spur. That's the place where there'll be what you would call a house thermal, but it's just a logical place where a thermal's going to climb. So the way I normally treat flying there after all these years is I've I think of it just like I'm on a cross-country and I've come downwind towards this launch or towards this mountain, forgetting that it's a launch mountain, and I'm five

kilometres out and I'm looking at the hill from 5km out in these conditions. Where would I go to find the thermal triggering? You know, that's how I look at it from... But from the perspective of about to take off. So where would I go if I was just arriving here on a cross country? And that's the place to go to. So if you see someone climbing, for sure, you're going to go to someone that's climbing. If you see the wind on in a certain direction, you're going to pick a spine or a lip or a trigger point there. If there isn't much wind, maybe you'll search for a trigger

point a bit further down the hill because it might not be triggering off the top of the hill. So they're the main tips there. So treat it like an isolated hill in the middle of the flatlands, which it is, and what would you do if you arrived there? But generally, if you're a first-timer, you would be looking at other people climbing. That's the usual thing. When we run cross-country clinics here, And Thermalink clinics, we just get everyone to wait on launch, a couple of wind dummies go, have a bit of a chat, look at what's going on there, and then get them on the radio and

shoot them out to a thermal wherever that might be. And you can very quickly learn from the wind dummies in your first few climbs. All right,

Aninder: great. You know, when I was just looking at some photos about Manila, I usually saw a lot of cloud streets. So what does a typical day of cross-country flying look like visually? I mean, of course, there are blue days and stuff like that, but let's say a good day where everybody lands happily and goes for a beer. How does that day look like to a pilot? Okay. So let's say it's a day with clouds because we do get days with no

clouds that are really epic as well. But so hypothetical day with clouds scattered across the sky. The big days, obviously the ones that are very close to OD. So you've got to sort of manage that a little bit as well and not get too excited when the clouds get too big. Always mind the height versus width scaling on the clouds. So we typically get downwind. The ridges here are north south aligned mostly. So if we get any wind that's in that alignment or within 10 or 20 degrees of that alignment, you do tend to get a run of clouds into streeting, not due to the classic reasons

for streeting, like upper level disturbances and so on, but you're streeting due to terrain formations underneath you. So the classic route that you do from here heading north, for example, it's lined up with the north-south line. ridges and so on. So you get flatlands, ridges, et cetera. So you do end up having quite long lines of clouds that are very self-explanatory. The risk is that when you do end up out of sync with them, so they might start and then they'll end up putting what I call a bit of an oscillation through the atmosphere downwind. and they'll end up having a rippling effect of how they form. So one forms, the next one forms, and then as you get towards them, that rippling effect might

end up, you could be out of synchronisation with the ripple in a sense, so you're not catching it at the top of the cycles or you arrive at dead ones. We've seen that quite a lot when we've been team flying where pilots, you know, I might be in the lead or something and going, I'm having really excellent climbs out of these clouds and just one or two clouds back, everyone's in the decay phase of those clouds, even though the clouds look like they're lined up in a street. So you can end up having a pretty ordinary day if you're in the phasing, even though you're in a cloud

street situation, then you do the usual 45 degree downwind turn and try and find, get out of the sync cycle as well, of course. But the typical day like that, yeah, would have clouds popping up, had reasonable glides. I mean, nowadays you've got 10 to 1 glides, 11 to 1 glides on most of the classical hiders and above. That's a totally different ballgame to what it was 20 years ago when everyone was doing sixes and sevens. So that very much changes it. Once the performance got to over 10... It completely changed the ball game in the Alps as well. Same story. You know, you were able to do crossings without too many dramas. You'd always find a climb on the other side. That makes events like Red Bull

X-Alps much more possible, having over 10 to 1 for sure. But then same thing here. You're pretty well connecting all the time. So once you're up on a good day, you know, 100Ks is quite easy normally, just with the fact of the glider performance now giving you that magical number, which it's funny that it ended up being 10 to 1 as well. uh it was uh something that we always shot for you know around 2000 oh my god if we ever get a glider that does 10 to 1 we'll never land you know i don't know why that number was picked it was just a number but uh but funnily enough when

it happened and the thing is we had gliders um in the early days you know with their 10 to 1 glides and they seem to be able to stay until sunset all the time now that we're able to do that for the last sort of 10 to 15 years, depending on the glider level you're at. Pretty well sunset flights, you know, into the sunset, eight hours, nine hours, 10 hours are entirely possible for even intermediate pilots now, provided you don't race it too hard. So that makes a good day for us. Just consistent clouds everywhere. Don't fly yourself into... Blue holes, usual routine, you know, you want to watch out for blue holes on days with cloud streets because they're always where the sink is, of course. In our case

here, with the north-south ridge alignment, until we get to the flatlands, if you do cross the wide valleys between the north-south ridges, there is a fair bit of sink there, even though there might be a few dimples in the valley floor. A lot of people end up landing in a place called the Horton Valley, which is a big wide 20 kilometer wide valley going from one set of ridges to the next you've got to set yourself up ahead basically so that that's always critical on the countries around here as it is anywhere in the semi-flat but set yourself up for known areas where the where there are blue holes and and be able to look at that in the bottom third of your climb to look ahead and see where the blue hole

is coming up and start making some decisions uh 20 or 30 kilometers ahead Do you quickly want to touch upon how low do you have to be before you push

Aninder: the panic button? It's like, okay, if I don't save myself, then a bomb out is coming in. What kind of altitude do we look at? And what is the usual altitude of cloud-based on a good day? I just wanted to bring an altitude perspective into our discussion here. The altitude of cloud base, you

would have seen some of the flights from Timo and the guys in South Africa this year, just a couple of weeks ago. They were flying there, you know, 4,500 metres, 5,000 metres and so on. But what people forget is that the absolute height sounds fantastic above sea level. But the actual height above ground level was only about 1,000 or 3,500 metres. And that's an interesting number, 10,000 feet above ground, is roughly an average good day at most good cross-country flying sites. And we're talking about semi-flatlands here. So if we get – our ground level here is around 300. So if we get 3.3 or 3.5, that's a really good cloud-based day, like a great XC day. you know in south africa in some places it will be

four and a half thousand asl which is still only three and a half above ground so mother nature has sort of worked it out for us that the height above ground versus the distance you're flying versus the amount of wind speed there is the best days around that 3000 agl as opposed to asl you get that all over the planet um same thing in texas way so that that's a good day a lot of the big days here are a little bit lower on base like two and a half um that's above ground so let's say two eight to three thousand just a little bit below three thousand meters um that's they're very

handy days when whenever you get to about two days with two and a half thousand meters that's when this uh stress point comes along a bit more often when you get low Because you're likely not going, like at some point on the next sea at that stage with a two and a half day, you're likely to run into a point where you have to manage things a little bit better and decide, oh, I'll take this climb to the very end because the next one looks like I'm not going to make the next cloud very well or there's a gap in between. So you don't want to end up low, as you sort of mentioned in the

intro to that question. What's really low here? Oh, about 20 metres is really low off the ground. But I beat up from meters before that height. You can almost, on a field that's a known trigger field, which is plowed and you can see the dust starting to move, you can be almost ridge sawing a tree line and get back up again very easily. But for most people, you want to be about 300 AGL is a the point where you want to be searching already over a trigger. There's a lot of flatland theory that goes in when we're teaching cross-country clinics here about where to wait as well. A lot

of people don't wait in the right places. They're waiting on what they think is the trigger, but due to wind, you know, that's actually the thermals lifting off further downwind. then where they're waiting and they end up landing it, a friend of theirs that flies over the top and is 100 metres downwind is getting the massive climb and they can't figure out where they made the mistake. So that's a classic problem of anticipating where to wait in the flatlands or even with small hill terrain and so on. The other thing that I found here... compared to say traditional cross-country places in the mountains is we have even though it looks like it's really flat it's actually not really flat

there's there's subtle angles in the terrain leading to gullies and creek beds and water courses and so on even though it might look like it's laser level flat and there's cotton fields around even five degrees of slope going downwind downslope is enough to create like an anti-thermal effect or an anti-trigger effect until it reaches the next slope going upslope. So, you know, looking at the lay of the terrain, looking at drainage patterns is something we do quite a lot when we're getting towards the end of a long glide and thinking where is this thermal going to lift off from because the field itself that you're looking at That might be the epic, you know, classic textbook

cross-country mag style field. It should have a thermal coming off and then for sure there's a cloud above it or downwind a little bit and that's the one. But if it's on a slope downwind and away from you downslope, then it's not going to be triggering. It'll be somewhere else altogether. Like the warm air from that field that's sitting above it won't lift off at the end of the field. It'll go along what looks like non-triggerable areas until it goes upslope again. So the wind is actually pushing it down into stability instead of upslope into instability or unsticking itself from the ground. So there's a lot of little tricks like that where people land and they go, damn, I missed the climb, but actually you're on

the downslope. That's why you missed the climb, as an example. And those are the sort of things you need to do. But height management, the classic thirds theory, is what we work on here on days where you've got clouds. So the top half of your... If you're anticipating to arrive in the top third, then you're looking at clouds. In the middle, you're looking at ground and cloud. In the bottom third, for sure, if you're going to arrive at the bottom third, you need to be looking at all ground triggers and give yourself three or four options in front of you as you're doing that longer glide usually. Some of the glides can be like 20 kilometres. So from that far ahead, it's very hard to pick the ground anyway. So if

you're going to be arriving at one third of your overall height, AGL that is, then you're looking at something a very long way away and trying to figure out the terrain that you almost need. And you certainly can't see pilots from that distance either. So there's a lot of additional factors in there that people don't consider when they're doing long glides with tailwind, you know, they're covering. And they're skipping thermals as well, which is also another one there. Oh, I'll wait for the next five metre climb instead of take this one metre climb, not realising that the one metre climb is the one they really needed because they're not going to make it to the five metre climb there, as an

example. Wow, thank you so much for explaining it so well, Gautam. It's just like, yeah, this is a wealth of information. And yeah, it's coming

Aninder: from someone who knows it in and out. I think our listeners will appreciate a lot. You know, just quickly, when you said about gullies and all of these features, do you guys have some sort of valley winds or venturies or something that come into play when you're in the last...

And not to a great extent. Yeah. Well, I mean, we don't really have enough terrain to get venturi effects. I mean, it's to be very localized. For example, if you're flying in strong winds and you're in a low ridge with a gap in it, for sure, you're going to get a localized venturi, but not in the classic sort of large valley senses that you're sort of implying from flying in the mountains somewhere. We don't really get that. I mean, look, we can fly up into the table lands. That's another great direction up into the great dividing range area, which goes up to a thousand meters above sea level. and there are some but it's also plateau country up there so so really we don't get that venturi effect

there now the thing to watch out for down low here are the are the very strong localized dust devil style climbs like a very violent climb that's been sitting there on a super adiabatic day just boiling and boiling waiting to get released and it might be drifting onto a tree line which is in the shadows and therefore there's a big contrast in temperature suddenly and it will release from there so they're the ones that They can get you. And there's been a number of close calls over the years and even accidents with pilots arriving low at a baking, you know, ploughed field with an obvious trigger next to it of a tree line or a small terrain feature and just waiting there, cruising backwards and

forwards on that line where they think that's going to trigger. And suddenly they get covered in dust and the dust level rips off the ground underneath them and they end up in a... in a very big mess very quickly. So that'd be the thing that we would watch out for. That's like the sharks in the ocean here, the random factors like that. But if you do end up on a day like that here, then you'll see them anyway while you're on your cross country, you'll see the dust devils forming and they're easy to avoid. It's just the problem is if you're at say 100 metres and you're

scratching and one is going to rise at 15 metres a second, it only gives you a few seconds to fly away from it, especially if it's coming up at you from below. over the trigger point that you've been waiting for so so you've got to really be on the ball there and anything under 200 meters or you know even 300 meters in some cases you're still going to be in the the very violently turning vortex of the of a dust devil or whirly wind as we call them so basically if this shit happens and hits you what's the way out do you ride with it do you throw your reserve or do you just hope for the

best and make the most of what you can Well, there is a video of Rick from the X-Alps fame who now lives in, he's Canadian, but he lives in Japan, as you'd be aware, taking off, not wanting to take off, but about to take off from the East takeoff here in the morning. And they had a number of dust devils go through the takeoffs. Everyone was waiting under the tree with their gliders until the dust devils stopped. And I thought to myself, no, there's still going to be some more. But a few of the guys went out there and laid out. And of course, you know, there was still turmoil

to come through. And that's what lifted him up in the air, got spun around or spiraled around and ended up the gliders remained inflated, which he was very, very lucky to occur and flew away and did a 150 kilometre flight straight after that. without landing again. But he was pretty lucky from that. But that was from very low down. But it can give you a visual. That video is very rare to see something like that. And it can give you a really, really good visual of what it would be like if you got into one, let's say, at 50 meters or even 100 meters, how it's going to throw you

around. And the critical thing there is if you do throw the reserve, it's a high chance it's not going to come out. And remember, with the vortex, there's also air going down around the edge of it as well. Like there's not just air going up, it's in a vortex at high speed, but it's also air getting pushed out to the side, very strong wind shearing closer to the centre and so on. So the example that I have is a personal one of being over a trigger line on the edge of a large field on a big record day, of course, the usual day. Usual story there, you get low, you look for the best spot

to take a climb. I saw some dust rising, thought I'd go in there. High risk manoeuvre, of course, tree line. And within about two seconds, I was covered in dust and I didn't know what was up or down. But the main thing was the barrier was going absolutely off its nut. It was doing like 20 plus metres per second, even on the back. Yeah, the 15 second average was over 20 metres a second. But the only thing I could think about then, because it was the first time I'd been in something that violent, was to maintain a G loading on the glider. So in other words, not quite a spiral

dive, but very steep spiralling style turn. In order to keep the loading up, to keep it inflated. And even then I was still getting small tucks. But maintaining that very high speed turn and still going up at 20 metres a second with almost no visual reference to the ground being in the middle of dust. Well, apart from being very excited and adrenaline rushing, which I didn't want to have happen, but that was a way to get out of it. So I wouldn't have wanted to fly out of the core at that stage. It's like leaving any strong thermal. You're going to run into some very strong shearing. You're better off staying inside the intense core that's going up just like a whirlwind or mini tornado style. Better off

being inside that rather than trying to exit to the outside and battle your way through some very strong shearing. uh which might result in your glider not even recovering if you take a big collapse so you're better off staying in it uh with some strong turns and uh it's almost like fighting it uh fighting a strong battle with a dust devil but maintaining g loading was what i found worked really well and any time i've been in something close to that i've always turned a lot tighter to stay in the core and to ensure that you know you don't get spat out either that's very important You don't want to get exited in a bad configuration, pitching forward stance or anything like that. No,

Aninder: fingers crossed. That doesn't happen to anyone. I mean, I don't think anybody can aim to do that on purpose. Are there pilots who are going out and chasing that? Okay, that's what does David. And after 500 meters, it's kind of broadening out. So let's make the most of the climb. Does that happen as well? Just out of curiosity. Yeah. there's a there's a few that have tried it and you're talking to one now so it's all it's all part

of that experimentation when you're uh young and a little bit more bold i'll say i know a lot better now but uh see these days with more high aspect ratio gliders or more wingspan it's a little bit of a different ball game again as well so it's something i wouldn't want to be testing in a triple c glider for example but if you're in a IB and you had your act together and you'd had a bit of acro behind you I'm not advocating people to fly into a dust devil but if you were at 100 meters and it was around you you could certainly try and stay in it that gives you enough height in your way to

exit and throw a reserve if you need to but anything below 100 meters would be taking a very large risk on board which I don't think is worthwhile for the experimentation side of things it's you're better off being a bit Look, even at 300 metres entering a visible vortex of dust, I mean, because you're moving through the atmosphere, you can't actually tell how fast it's rotating if it's at your level. It's very hard to pick the rotation speed. So you obviously should always fly into the turn of the rotation rather than with it when you enter and so on. So doing that, I mean, apart from the fact you get really dusty, I might just add that as well. You are covered in dust, like, full on. That's why it's

not a good option to go in there. Your eyes, everything, unless you're wearing a mask, you're just completely covered in dust. But certainly the climb is worth it if you're in a hurry. You can very quickly get to base on one of those climbs on a 3,000 metre day. And here, you know, we occasionally get days where the dust is 100 metres wide, like a tornado almost. And there's... 15-metre climbs in them, and the sailplanes use them all the time here. They see them and they fly, you know, 1,000 metres, and they're taking these monster climbs to cloud base to improve their average speed over the day. And it's the same thing for us. If you see a good one and you're at 1,000, it really isn't a big deal. But

the sheer on the edge of something that's doing 10 or 15 metres a second is quite exciting and exciting. Definitely. And I think what comes to my

Aninder: mind is, as you're saying, that it's really dusty. I mean, if a lot of dust enters your air intakes and accumulates at the trailing side of the glider, like it happens in snow, like if you fly in snow, there's a lot of snow and eventually you're close to stalling. Is that something similar or because the dust is so fine, so it filters out eventually? Look, I haven't experienced it with any of that occurring and I have it in

snowy conditions for sure. But with the dust being so fine and it's very transient that you're in there, plus you're also turning, you've got high internal pressure on the glider, high wing loading and so on. So that tends to stop an airflow exchange and that's what you really need. You're only really getting the, let's say, the kinetic energy of a little dust particle trying to enter a high-pressure zone inside your glider, which technically it would be hard for those little dust particles to get in there, I guess. You would get some for sure, but I don't think it's what you would think to be an amount that's going to affect your braking or change the angle of attack on your glider. Now,

Aninder: good to hear that. And thank you for clarifying what a whirlwind of a little bit of introduction over there. You know, I think now we have we've talked about how to get there, how to how to make the most of the best days possible. And of course, what to what not to do what what to basically look out for coming to landing, you know, if you are finally deciding to land, I mean, I get it, you said that 10 meters above the ground is still like you can have a low save. But let's say you finally had enough of the day and you want to land, what are the the usual hazards.

Like, I mean, a lot of places have power lines, a lot of places have step farming, a lot of places have, I don't know, you guys have a lot of wildlife. I've heard there are snakes everywhere. So if you can just talk about like what not to do when you're coming into land. Yep. So we'll

just start from the ones that are at risk, and that's power lines, obviously. But being a very sparsely populated region, there aren't actually that many power lines. Like the power lines run between the properties, between the farms, and between towns. The towns are spread something like 30 to 50 kilometres apart on average, right? So there's usually only one power line running along that. You don't have the money along the roads normally. The power lines tend to run directly between the properties to save the amount of poles they're using and cables they're using. So it's from an economical perspective that that occurs. So that's what you've got to watch out for. The trick is to look

for – I mean, the houses will be obvious, the farmhouses, but – Looking for sheds and places like dams and rivers where there might be pumps that are running on electricity as opposed to solar, they will possibly have a power line running to them. So that's something to consider as well. So we don't really have a big power line hazard here, but it does exist, but it's obvious where they are. The main ones are, I mean, we do get an occasional angry farmer. That was a consideration. You shouldn't land where there's horses or people riding horses. They get very annoyed very quickly. But there's not many of those either. That's a rarity as well. The biggest issue once you've landed, I guess, I mean, as fences,

they can sometimes be appearing out of the middle of nowhere because the grass can be quite deep in a wet season. The grass can be like a metre or two deep and cover fences. Or the grass can cover debris on the ground like rocks. other terrain features so you want to consider that um i personally try to land on the on the grassy verge which is usually mown next to the main roads so that makes it easier because you know even on the roads actually is a much easier option if there's no traffic than landing in a field somewhere with potentially some rocks and a big

walkout most of the big flights i've done When you're landing at sunset, you're sort of converging onto a road anyway, so you've got less of a walk and you don't want to walk out at night, so you might as well just land on the road. There isn't actually that much traffic out here. It's very surprising. If you're on a highway, you know, there's not that many cars, so physically landing on a tar-sealed road 300 kilometres from here, it is not really an issue. It's not like you're landing in the Alps where there's a car every 30 seconds or so, so you can see them miles away.

The main thing is once you've landed, I mean, snakes, everyone talks about snakes and then other... animals in australia trying to kill you sure they're out there trying to kill you but they're also they don't want to be near you either so as long as you're making plenty of noise and you and you're stomping around in the tall grass they'll tend to run away you know don't poke a snake for example one of the more funny ones we've had a british pilot landed in a field and his glider fell down and some kangaroos had a bit of a look they were very excited to check it out and one

of the lines got caught around the kangaroo's leg as he started hopping away. And of course, then the glider was chasing the kangaroo. The pilot wasn't connected anymore. So you can imagine the kangaroos looking over his shoulder going, oh shit, this big colorful thing is now chasing me, realizing that it's got a line caught around its leg. And then all the other kangaroos started running away as well. And he's going, well, I'm out of here too. But the glider was still chasing it. So it ended up a long way across the field before the before it got untangled from the glider and through a fence as well and had some tears in it. Of course, there's a lot of livestock in the region, just like there is in Brazil, for

example. So there'd be a lot of cattle around. And they're very interested in what you're doing. They'll come up from a kilometre away and have a look at you packing up and seeing what's going on. They're not to be worried about, but you just got to watch out that they don't see the lines or get caught in the line. So that'd be the main thing there. So as far as dangers, It's not really a dangerous area as such. Probably some more personal things you need to consider would be having enough water on board if you do land away from a road on a hot day. Seems logical, but we

still get pilots from countries thinking, oh, it's a civilised area, there's mobile phone service everywhere and so on, and there's roads, but sometimes the gaps between the roads can be 20 or 30 kilometres and you might not make it to the next road. You land in the middle of a field somewhere, there is nothing there. The properties can be 50 kilometers wide sometimes you know to give you an idea so thousands of hectares um and no access by a car you most people are doing it on motorbikes or horseback when they're looking for their stock so so when you land there's a paraglider you're a long way from nowhere sometimes so having enough water on board is one of the most important things The usual

safety measures, having a tracking system, whether you use Spotter or Garmin or even just WhatsApp with live tracking going on is always handy. Radio is an absolute must as well. But those usual cross-country factors are a big deal for us too. out to about 300 kilometers in most directions 350 uh we've got a very good mobile phone network so you're virtually in service um and even out to four and five hundred k's uh heading into the flatlands there's this great service in in the region yeah if you're at 100 meters off the ground 500 case from here, you're still going to have service. You can still put an SMS out. Once you're on the ground, it might be a bit sketchy, of course. So the region is very

well covered in that network sense. Of course, now everyone's going to the iPhone, the new models of the iPhone, which are going to have satellite in them. as well from next year onwards in this country anyway. I think it's available in the US already. So once that occurs, it's a game changer and then you can go really anywhere you want. But they're the main dangers that we've got to consider. There's not really... I mean, if you've watched the movie called Wolf Creek... I don't know. It's an Australian movie. Look it up. It talks about a psycho mass murderer, you know, killing all the back. I remember that. I remember that. Yes. So that's scary. Like, yeah, I don't want to think

Aninder: about it. Well, occasionally you'll see some very interesting farming folk that could be coming from somewhere like Wolf Creek. And we do get

people, you know, are you sure it's okay to get a lift with these guys? Well, just watch the movie first and make your own mind up. Thank you for

Aninder: the heads up, Godfrey. But, you know, quick, I wanted to touch this point and I'm so thankful you brought it up. How is safety for women pilots? Like, let's say if a solo female pilot goes out and lands and it's kind of getting late and she has to, you know, make it back to civilization safe and sound. What does, I mean, I know it's a first world country and it's fairly safer than third world ones, but what does it look like for a solo female pilot landing in and making it back safely? 100% safe. We've got a high number of female pilots flying here. Because it's such a safe

region anyway, it's not as stressful to fly here as it is in big alpine conditions, for example. You can land anywhere. Most people have that fear of, oh, my God, can I land anywhere? And here, pretty well everywhere, there's somewhere to land within a glide or an easy glide, so it's less stressful. I find the women that are flying here, there's a whole... in skill levels there. And none of them have ever said something like, oh, we had a really bad pickup ride back to the local bar or pub or whatever in a small town. Like everyone's super friendly here. There's not really any of that sort of crime level that you might expect in some places in, say, South Africa. I don't want to put a negative on

that, but we all know that that can be a little bit risky there. You know, The US, you know, some small country towns in the US have got a bad reputation as well. But in a sense here, we just have never had an issue in all the years I've been here. Everyone's super friendly. You know, they're going to offer you a beer, male or female. You know, you land somewhere, they're going to say, geez, you've had a big day. How would you like a beer? straight out of the cool box or they'll take you to the pub or somewhere like that or invite you home for dinner if your retrieve's

going to take some time. So in that sense, we've never really had any problems. It's always been a very positive experience for everyone. And there's been lots of people make friends with farmers and come back year after year and go and visit them as well, send them Christmas cards and so on. So it's been quite a good social interaction that's created from this little unique international scene that we have here.

Aninder: Beautiful. So glad to hear that. I want to keep my perspective that Wolf Creek only happens in movies, not in real life, fingers crossed.

Finally, we are reaching the last part of the show, and I know we are very short on time here. I missed out on one point, Godfrey. What equipment do you recommend? Is there like, you know, because it's a long day, have the most comfortable harness? I mean, I know people fly their X-Alps and hike and fly stuff as well. But usually, if you want to make the most of the day, quickly, if you can touch upon what kind of equipment and how to kind of make it, what to bring. I mean, it's a pretty broad question because that's the same question you could ask about any long-distance

cross-country flying, whether it's here or any other country that offers you, you know, seven or eight-hour days or even longer. Primarily, if you're intending to fly to sunset and do a PB, the harness is critical. Like, you've got to have a... An absolutely comfortable harness with no pressure points. Something that is almost on autopilot when you're on glide and on speedbar, which is happening a lot. And particularly, it needs to be something that you're comfortable with in rough air as well. Not that we get that much rough air here. But there's always going to be one climb on a big day where you're going to get thrown around a little bit and it can rattle you a bit. So some people say, oh,

look, I'm going to have big, fat, wide, flat land thermals. And so I'll take a harness or I'll widen up the trap to give me more weight shift or something like that. But then they'll run into a real strong thermal and they'll get spat out at the inversion. wonder what happened to them. So something that you're comfortable with, equipment that you know very well is important. That's what I would mostly say. You don't want to turn up with a new harness. You want to have done your hours and it's your favourite saddle, so to speak, rather than being something that you've only done 10 hours in and then you're expecting to do an eight-hour flight. You're always going to find some adjustments need to be done. As

far as glider goes, for sure, once again, it's what you're comfortable with. Being a mostly flatlands region that we're flying in here, you can obviously fly a higher glider than you would normally say in tight alpine areas. You're going to fly the Pyrenees, for example, in strong summer conditions and Agerre. That's a totally different glider choice than flying here in strong summer conditions. So our strongest, roughest days are probably an average to moderate rough day in the Alps, to give you an example. So people, we don't get the really sharp edges on the climbs because we don't have mechanical turbulence because it's relatively flat on the hills around it. so and the coming off the flats as

opposed to off the side of a hill so in that sense um you can be reassured that you know you're not going to run into some savage air that often like you would in the alps you still might get one a day but that's not as crazy as people think so comfortable equipment uh for sure something that's got storage area for plenty of water i would suggest as well that's important or taking a bladder with you so It means you're all up weight as a consideration. Pilots have got to consider, like, if they're already on the top of the weight range with one litre, what's going to happen when

you're taking three litres because you're anticipating a potential walkout? So that's another one there that, you know, you want to think about your overall weight. It doesn't hurt to be heavier on the gliders, but one day you're going to need to scratch out in a 0.5 or a 0.35 you know for the next thousand meters it's going to be very slow if you're heavy you're going to fall out of it so that's i don't always advocate on being the heaviest in the glider like it's you're not racing in a world cup or a serial class comp you're racing against mother nature to the sunset and uh that means you're going to be flying over different parts of the day you'll be flying at the beginning where it's a bit scratchy the middle of

the day where it's very strong And the end of the day where it might go scratchy again and you're looking for a floaty glide to maximise your actual distance. So it's not always optimum to be the heaviest on the wind. either, so from that perspective. We don't normally, with just some reserve parachutes, we don't normally need a steerable reserve in flatlands. It's not that necessary. Alpine, you might consider it, but out here you don't really have that situation being required. In fact, you know, in all the years we've had flying here, and we're talking, you know, 30 years of paragliding with thousands and thousands of cross-country flights, there's only been a handful of reserve

deployments on a cross-country flight. Like, there's been a few around the hill, just where people are starting out and they're maybe unlucky or they've come unstuck because they haven't flown for a few months, in other words. But actually on course, like out there in the middle of the XC day, hardly any at all. Like it would be less than a dozen reserves ever thrown in all those years on an XC, which is quite remarkable, actually. And it tells you how relatively safe the region is to fly in and that pilots from all levels have had that level of safety about them. That's

Aninder: so glad to hear that. And thank you for bringing out that perspective, because I was literally going to ask you this question. We bring this out to our audiences in every single episode. How many accidents and how many throws happen per season on an average? So just that people know before going in. So basically around the takeoff area where you've just launched, the people are getting settled into what's going on. I find

that what occurs is once you've been up for two or three hours, you're very unlikely to lose control because you're very current all the day. It's when people arrive. And the general profile is a pilot's arrived, hasn't flown, like typically a Northern European, Northern American pilot comes over, or North Asian, for example, comes over, hasn't flown any thermals for two or three months, jumps off in the middle of the day at midday. It's on like a train, as we say, and buying a glider that's maybe a little bit too hot for them as well. So when are they going to have their reserve toss? within the first 30 minutes, which typically means that it's going to be around the hill, around the launch area somewhere,

which is good for us because that means if there's a rescue needed, they're in close and everyone's there. Um, on course, you know, two or three hours into a flight, as I said, very rare, maybe one every two years or so we would find a reserve on course. It's, it's, it doesn't happen that often. And, um, and that's, that's because the, it's a flatlands region. There aren't that many hills. Um, The pilots generally, once they have a few hours, like I said, under their belt, they're not throwing reserve. But around the hill, let's say, in terms of reserve, I mean, a reserve throw isn't necessarily always an accident because we can have accidents occurring without a reserve. And we had one just the

other day here, which needed a helicopter rescue. And the good thing is it's only 10 minutes away from takeoff. two minutes flying time so that's that's a bonus for us as well but around the launch i would say we would have it depends on the season as well if it's a very dry season and strong conditions or whether it's an average season but let's say average around about two to three reserves a year would happen within that first 30 minutes of flying for the reasons i outlined Beyond that, accidents, one doesn't get a chance to throw the reserve. For sure, there's a couple of those as well. That would happen around, generally, again, around the takeoff area. And again, mostly because they're not

current for the conditions on the day or because they've come and arrived very uncurrent in an overall sense. When someone's done a day of flying already, it's very rare they will come unstuck somewhere down the track. So in that sense, it doesn't happen that often. But to give you an idea, there was a pilot here from a particular country flying a triple C glider. He'd just done a 200K flight, 240K flight a few days earlier. But he'd moved up from a B-class glider to a triple C. Hold on a second. Hold on a second. You're telling me a pilot moved on from a B to a triple C

Aninder: and managed to do a 200-kilometer flight? Absolutely, yes. How does that happen in the real world, man? The days have been good. How do you handle a triple C from a B? That's not okay. From a high B. Well, there's a lot of people that do it, and people come unstuck, as he did. You might be

lucky for your first view in nice conditions, and that's what happened. They had really good, great cross-country flying. Pilots on Bs were doing 200s, on Cs were doing 250s. He's on his triple C, just moved up. He's got 10 hours, 15 hours on his triple C. But then he's taken off in northwest conditions on the west launch, so crosswind, rolling thermals up the face. And within 10 minutes after launch, he's had an asymmetric at 50 meters, didn't control it, didn't weight shift counter brake. let it rotate in didn't throw the reserve ended up impacting the side of the hill just a couple of minor fractures which is very lucky almost he wanted to walk out for himself but he was a little bit

too far down it's a bit too steep then he's he started complaining about a sore back decided to sit down and so we've got the rest helicopter in to pick him up but that's the sort of classic example of someone flying a glider above their skill level getting overconfident because he's had a couple of big days and they've worked out well. He hasn't had a collapse yet. These high-end gliders, they're very highly loaded as well. The guys are flying 20s and 21s at 70 and 80 kilos, which means it's a very high wing loading and they don't tend to go very often, but when they go, they

go very ugly very quickly and you've got to be on the ball for that. with very fast reactions and that's what people aren't used to when they've come from a b or even a standard c it's a very big step onto a triple c and why they do that who knows but that's another topic for another time for us i think so well thank you for clarifying that as well because that sounds pure stability to me and i i don't i have no shame in putting it out going from a highway to a triple c is nothing but yeah not a good recipe I can give you the extreme example, and your listeners may as well hear it. Like

another pilot went from an A to a high C in one hit, right, from an A. From a school glider with 20 hours experience, someone sold him a secondhand C because normally they're very cheap anyway when they're one or two generations old. He took a very large collapse on a very easy day above the hill. The whole thing was recorded on our webcam. spiraled in from about 150 meters into the top of the hill no reserve throw no counter break no weight shift no nothing and he unfortunately died on top of the hill despite medical attention being there so you know they're the sort of things where you go that is stunningly stupid what i mean unfortunately he's not with us anymore but why would anyone even sell

him a glider you know and From an A-class glider to a C, that's putting the gun to your head with a bullet or two in the chamber and playing a bit of roulette there. It's totally crazy. True, true, true. I mean, hundreds of times people have said, live to fly another day. That is the bottom

Aninder: line. You will upgrade when the time is right, but don't rush it. Anyways, thank you for bringing out all of those details. I think we covered everything that a pilot needs to know how to navigate Manila safely and what Australia has in general. Before we move on to the last point, that is storyline. I wanted to know what are the options to do when it is not flyable in Manila? Because every site has those days when you just have a beer in front of you and grey and dark skies to stare. So when that day happens, what are the typical activities that you get up to?

What can you possibly do? Okay, well, I mean, firstly, if we start very, very locally here, you know, we've got a pool here on site. So a lot of people just hang out, listen to some music, drink some beer, as you say, party on a little and wait for the next good flyable day. The other option is to head it to the next big town, Tamworth. It's got a little bit of pub and club action going on there. But again, during the day, that's not that interesting. There are some pretty amazing national parks within an hour's drive of here, some incredible featured parks with geological features, even sandy beaches on the inland rivers in some places and some old glades, even though we're inland and But it's a very

old terrain feature here. And there's a feature there which was caused by a glacier just off the road from us. And there's actually pools and ponds there. And you can see where the rocks have been scraping along and causing a glacial feature. So there's places like that you can go and visit. There's great climbing as well. Some really, really good climbing in one of the national parks, quite world-renowned. Locally on site, we have downhill mountain bike tracks. on the hill. So there's a championship level downhill and enduro mountain bike tracks. So that is an option too if people are coming with their bikes. And we've got some bikes here as well occasionally. Aside from that, I mean, there's

hiking on top of it. But you're in the middle of nowhere. You've got to remember that. So it's the fun that you make for yourself in that sense. We've got a river down the back. Some people go fishing looking for carp or other types of fish that they might catch. The attracting the opposite sex is not always an option here because you're out in the bush. So you've got to go into town for that sort of party activity on a non-flying day. It's certainly not like places like in Brazil where the party happens every single day. So you're more of a dedicated pilot when you're coming here. And quite frankly, on the days where people aren't flying, I mean, quite often you get a run of seven or eight days. We just

had a tour group here from New Caledonia. They flew 13 out of 14 days. And they were dog mad. Like they were happy for the last day where it wasn't flyable before they went home. They were just sitting by the pool just going, they are completely wasted from flying every day. So, you know, having one day off a week or two days off a week, it can be a good thing because you need to recharge a little bit as well. Amazing. Seems like

Aninder: the place to be. I mean, parting or no parting, we are all attracted by flying first and then everything else. So I mean, you know, considering everything that you told me, this site offers 100 kilometers on an average, and it's super easy to get to. You have an amazing facility that you've built from scratch. hands up like from the bottom up by your hands pretty much and it's it's pretty safe like there's no crazy weather phenomena that catch you off guard the retrieves are kind of managed the whole community is so friendly i think i kind of want to book my ticket now i think you need to go down and do a podcast from here one day by the pool after a big flight A hundred percent, a hundred percent. I mean, your

wealth of knowledge, I was just going to say this at the end of the show, but honestly, Godfrey, your wealth of knowledge and the way you explain things, you are an interviewer's dream. And so if there are any other podcasters listening to this, bring Godfrey Willis and his expertise out to the public. It is need of the hour. I was going to say, that's very nice of you to say, and I've been teaching here for 30 years now. I've had

over 2,000 students go through from the beginner level, but also we teach high-end cross-country apart from running competitions and all the rest. So there's a broad wealth of knowledge that myself and the team have got here. over the years that we can translate or transfer onto people that are coming whether they want to do a cross- country clinic or a thermaling clinic for example or they just come for our xc camp and you know every single day we're giving tips and tricks during the xc camp in january every year so that's a really positive event with 200 pilots flying cross-country and one of the best things you can do is to be in a massive group of pilots all flying downwind no one's stressing because

it's not a race to goal and everyone's helping each other out you know on the radio or Or saying, you know, come over here, the thermal's great. It's not really a comp, but it's just a fun event based on the XC contest ranking system. So that's the sort of place we're trying to develop here over the years. And it's become exactly that. And I'm pretty happy with how it's running at the moment and how friendly everyone is when they're here. And it's a great social scene on top of it as well. Very international, I must say. Wow. Seems like the place to be. And

Aninder: honestly, a paraglider is a dream, to be honest, you know, because a lot of us are super excited about making it happen. And it's so inspiring to see someone going out there, bringing out all this knowledge and making paragliding a better place for everyone, not just for themselves. You got it. One last, finally, last segment of the show, Godfrey. We have this kind of tradition where we ask our hosts to share a story which is close to their hearts and which they kind of feel will be very knowledgeable. Like, I mean, it can be exciting, it can be knowledgeable, whatever you want. So is there something that comes to your mind straight off the bat that you want the listeners of the world to

Aninder: know what Manila has been all about so far? But as far as stories go, you know, after 30 years here and 35 years flying, I've done 16,000 hours now

in the air. There's obviously a lot of stories. There's a lot of stories here and elsewhere in the world, which, I mean, doing the world record was something that I was aiming for for five years of training, which was fairly... You had to be consistently flying, you know, two seasons in a row. You had to go northern hemisphere, southern hemisphere. So I did 10 years of flying in five years. So that all went pretty quick. But I guess the classic was when I landed at the end of that flight in Queensland, which is the next state, you know, 335 kilometres away from here. It was mostly a blue day. There were clouds right at the end for the last hour. And the farmer, the place I landed at, I had to make some loud noises above

the guy's property so he'd come out and see me land. Otherwise, I wouldn't have a world record at that stage because you have to take photos and you have to get a witness and so on. He's come out and had a look and I've landed next to him and we're wearing, in those days, with an open harness, not a pot harness, so full flying suit, gloves, you know, you're all dressed up, some to hell. And the farmer goes, oh, where did you just drop in from? What plane did you jump out on? story. I said, I've come from Manila. And he goes, what the fucking Philippines?

He couldn't believe it. Like he didn't even know Manila, New South Wales, Australia existed. That's how far away I was from home. And, uh, he thought the Philippines, so he could not believe it. And I said, no, no Manila, New South Wales, near Tamworth. Oh, I never even knew that. Didn't even know it existed, right? I think you might need a beer. And, uh, So that was quite a moment as well. But there's a whole, I could write a story of all the different things that have happened over the years without a doubt. You should consider writing a book with the amount of

Aninder: wealth of experience that you have, Godfrey. And I honestly hope that happens. But on that note, Godfrey, I think we're going to put your link out in our show notes with your permission in case some of our guests want to go ahead and enjoy this hospitality and the amazing things that you have to offer over there. And also the WhatsApp group, if at all that is possible. But yeah, on that note, Godfrey, thank you so much. It has been an absolute honor and a pleasure to have you on our show. And really sorry we had to take so much time from your busy schedule. It was super hard to

get time off. But on a closing note... Not a problem at all. Thank you very much for inviting me to your show. It's actually the first podcast I've

done in all these years, would you believe? Despite all the things we've done here and created a site and all the events and other things that have gone on over the years, it's the first time. We get a lot of media, obviously, mainstream media attention regionally and nationally here. and through Cross Country Mag. But in terms of a podcast and having a really good old chat with you has been great. There's so much more that we could talk about that isn't so much site related, you know, just paragliding in general. There's a lot of topics there that we could get into down the track a little bit if you'd like. But for sure, we're always welcoming having pilots turning up here. They can check out the

website, flymanila.com, for some basic information and the WhatsApp groups. We can put the link on your website for that as well when the time comes. So it's been great to chat with you. But also I'll say Merry Christmas to yourself if this gets out in time and also to the listeners as well. I hope they have a great Christmas and a fantastic 2024 coming up. And always fly safe, but fly far if you can. Wow. Fly safe and fly far is

Aninder: the motto to live by. Well, Godfrey, first podcast, but definitely love the last. I'm definitely for sure going to touch base with you once the season gets over and you have a bit more time on your hand because your wealth of knowledge needs to go out and make this world a better place, not just for pilots visiting Australia, but for pilots all across the world. Thank you so much, Godfrey. It's been an absolute honor and a pleasure. You bet. Thank you. All right.