New Technologies 4 : Veselin Ovcharov (Fly The Earth)

Veselin Ovcharov: the water and the guy who pulled this friend out of the water like jesus he was still alive he was alive he survived and he told me ah no problem they all do they all survive like three four per year during the sav courses wow we need to build this that you can activate even by Bluetooth like instructor from the ground or have a system that harness simple technology. We're basically been flying rucksacks for decades in this amazing sport that deserves so much more. But the technology just drifts other way. Where is the money? Where is the mass need? And this is still a niche sport. Basically, it's a heavy deal. I feel like I sold my

soul, but again, with a good purpose. And that's why I'm all in and I cannot give back as you earlier wished me. I have to deliver this to the community because in this final version that we're about to release soon, it's going to be a wow on the market, I believe. And I cannot wait to show it on Kupikart. The harness has been tested again by me and my friends, some of the best athletes in the world, world champions and stuff, and everyone else. And the harness has been holding very well and performing very well. It saves many lives.

Aninder: Being passionate about our sport is one thing, but maintaining that passion and turning it into a sustainable way of life, as I've said time and again earlier on the show, is something else entirely. And today's guest knows this journey all too well. Many of you recognize him for his incredible achievements across various disciplines in our sport, but he's also known very well for giving back in the ways that truly resonate with the paragliding community. We are talking about the pioneering mind behind one of the first and most innovative base harnesses on the market. A design that dramatically raised the safety standards in acrobatics, making it both fearless and groundbreaking at the same

time. In this episode, we dive into a holistic conversation about the second version of this innovation, which is due to be released very soon. The version 2 is not just about enhancing the fun factor, but also promises to deliver even greater safety and a comfort unheard of for all the pilots that will end up using it in their adventures. We explore the challenges he has faced, the philosophy behind the design process, and what it means to live a life driven by passion and adventure. So join us as we uncover the latest in paragliding tech and get a rare look into one of the sport's most dynamic figures, a world record holder, multi-air sport pilot, and founder of Fly the Earth brand. So tune in, have a

listen, and enjoy the show.

Nesanen Ocharo, thank you so much for coming on Paragliding Atlas Man and taking out time from your super busy schedule. So happy that you did this. How is life treating you these days? Really glad to be able to connect with you and your community. It's beautiful what you guys are

Veselin Ovcharov: doing and more than glad to contribute with the knowledge I gained during this development. Myself as a pilot and as a harness constructor and all the things around. Life has been busy lately, but with a great purpose and that's the thing that's keeping me strong. I love it, man.

Aninder: And thank you so much for taking our time from everything that you've been through. Just before the recording, we were talking about some difficulties, but the way you are managing them and the way you are still giving back to the community, I think needless to say, massive thanks. And I hope others can get inspired and follow your footsteps in time to come. While I was researching for this show, I was just looking at your page on Red Bull and it said that you come from a family of scientists. The first thing that came to my mind is that from a family of scientists to acro paragliding, that just seems like a very wild ride. Were you never into books or what has your history been like? How did you become Vessel

as we know it today? I guess they're very different but in a way very similar because in science everything has a question and answer. And

Veselin Ovcharov: this is a very important approach when it comes to adventure sport and taking risks. And I think that's my biggest advantage that I always have a question before I do something. And if you forget to ask this question, you'll find out very easy anyway, very fast paragliding. My parents were totally against it at least a decade. And then naturally they accepted when they see that this thing was making me happy. And I was going all around the world and having all these friends around. They definitely accepted. And I had a little chance actually to fly only once with my mom. in a very special day in easter day and as life can be hard you mentioned earlier she departed from this material world and the same

very day in easter day a couple of years later and for me this is very special also meaning to keep the flying dream and in that relation i did many dreams for myself with adventures that was definitely mind-opening to see the world firsthand how big and how amazing can be and all the people who who are ready to to support you and to celebrate life when you're traveling life is not about the problem life is about celebrating very powerful way of living and i had this luck to to do it for almost 15 years traveling around and then i decided to give something more more valuable to the community and also to myself i couldn't buy such equipment to feel myself super safe and comfortable there was

always a big list of compromises and i was like this should be easy to eliminate let's do something and five years ago this project start with fly the earth And we were very, how to say, very convinced that we will build it for a couple of months, but it stretched to be eternity. And at the beginning was also quite easy because we had people to partner with us like other factories and do the dirty work with R&D. We were just requesting things and paying, giving money, it's easy part. but then they were overwhelmed from the volume of this project and the difficulty because their workers taking the same salary they make a flip-flop but they don't struggle as much as with our product and

basically our requirements was to eliminate specific things in terms of safety and comfort like for example from an aqua harness you want a couple of rescue parachutes in a various position not the same more or less area for example both parachutes under your seat they're more or less in the same area and been myself wrapped in the lines when you look when you lose the energy and you fall into the lines in the paraglider you're wrapped like cat in fish line and to be able to extract the rescue is a matter of lucky the lines are more wrapped in this area or not and if you have two areas of the parachute to extract that makes the situation slightly better to survive and in the other thing those rescues they

used to share more or less the same routing for the attachment point on your shoulders and these create conflicts because sometimes when you throw one of the rescues and appear to be rigged to the harness under the bridles of the other rescue then you create some uneven tension and you can hang on your hips like sideways and so on it's happened to me again everything comes from experience this desire to improve things and then we decide let's make every parachute with two individual channels super clean and neat to your shoulder so it's like zip like a sweet like a kiss when you throw a parachute there is no some weird tension and pools and stuff and that that was delivered but it's really crazy to have these

clean routings with zippers in a textile product that is moving all the time to make them it's been like crazy and the other things we improve sorry for the sound some friends are coming to visit before my departing to pakistan So there was one thing to eliminate, and we did very good. And the other thing is the cutaway system, the base parachute. The system had some needs to be improved. For example, paragliders have maybe two or three meters longer lines than parachutes and skydiving canopies. And we've basically been using their three-ring cutaway system. We adopted it in the paragliding harness. We even reversed it upside down. and we use this longer line canopies that create way more g-force and

load to the body they create more gravitational pull and already in skydiving the cutaways can be violent and difficult if you're 100 kilo dude gnarly out rotation they have 10 kilo to pull the cable and they pull the cable straight from the direction of the pool because the cable go around the back The air harness is not like paragliding harness to have any adjustment. It's just a backpack that you put and the cable is going around your back and the handle which really extract the cable way more flawlessly, fluidly. Then paragliding, the cable is passing under your seat. and when you're in g-force with longer lines the cable is really heavy to pull and also the webbing that everybody been using for

this kind of harness on the market is a very cheap the cheapest possible polyester not very pretty as well that stretch like hell with the high kilogram load so we had to use a special webbing that fits three times stronger and have zero stretch. Unfortunately, the price is 11 times more or maybe 12 times more than the normal webbing. So that's a clear reason why the industry has been avoiding these kind of things. And the biggest help also came from Ellip Suite ring, middle ring, which actually gives more leverage to the system when it close. increase the the strength of the hold with 57 better it gives 57 better result only when we load the harness with 300 kilo for example if i load the three ring

system with 300 kilo without ellipsoid ring just the normal three rings It's very hard and when I put ellipsoid ring that give leverage to the three ring system geometry, it's almost 60% easier to pull the cable. We also make things to create unique pulley design to attach to the webbing so the cable is guided in a very smooth flow. and tiny many details into the assembly of the harness but basically we make a flowers super reliable cutaway with a very strong resistance three parachutes super neatly stored in the harness we also deep anatomic shape like to your body carbon plate for the back and for the seat board which gives tremendous difference in the feeling of how you connect with the

harness and also how you feel about comfort because the harness normally especially when you do twisted maneuvers it wrap around you and squeeze you like a lemon And you can really release your juice. Hygiene maneuvers. And this carbon plate, take the load. Simple as that. Take the load of the webbing, quite big percent of it, and makes you breathe very freely. And also what makes it distribute the load of the backrest adjustment point because the backrest adjustment point cannot be that high like in the cross country harness which is coming under your arm because there you have to pull like an animal and you have to have a free area for your arms right so the acro point backrest is

pretty low and what is your heavier part heaviest part of your body is the torso so basically nothing really holds your torso in aggressive whiplash movements when you do acro and sometimes i experience with old school harness my head is waving like a paper on the back and this carbon plate distribute the the the load of the backrest and you feel held by hands all the way to your neck really like a business class compared to economy and and also on the side we have really comfort cushions that you can really throw your weight shift and so on we use the the best possible material available on the market we work with nearly 50 companies that give us these parts some of them we make customly we build the buckles

that they're adjusted very simply and then the harness never lose the adjustment because when you do accru everyone knows end up suing your harness but what about if you put a winter jacket then your setting isn't too tight already we had to fix so many things and i can talk to you tomorrow but better you ask me other questions I love the way you're explaining things. And I think one of the first things that comes to my

Aninder: mind when you're explaining this whole complicated process and the background ecosystem of how this project is turning out to be, I'm wondering what comprises of your team and who are these people who are working with you and how did you find them? What does your tribe look like, basically? the team was something what really motivates me in the beginning because i felt i have the perfect team and that it is vitally

Veselin Ovcharov: important to have this fundamental before you start and they were really amazing every each of them they were worldly proof they've been really awarded from various stages scenes in their expertise field But it appeared to be very serious, the whole thing, sooner than later. And the team changed already a few times because they had to deliver things on a deadline. When you start doing something for other people, it's not anymore, maybe, or see you next weekend and we talk. When it became super on schedule things, and especially the first years that we had to work without salary. I work myself without salary till today. We just put an investment. and some most of them they were not putting their money but

their time and even that was too heavy for them so that was pretty devastating moment for me because i started losing this dream team which still amazing team but they were just not able to dedicate that much of an energy because that was sucking like the black hole the need of people work so i had to reorganize the team and basically i had many periods that i was just holding it on my barely two hands and and the good rule is that you start with some team and if you survive long enough you attract the right team again and now i'm super grateful that i have

people like middle-aged like in their 30s and they work like animals like 12 hours and they're really tireless one of them is a girl actually she just finished the university of textile and design she find us around the corner because she see the shop so she come naturally And the other guy, he came naturally. And the story about our technological person, the guy who knows how to stitch things, even this t-shirt has principles. You cannot just decide to make things. You have to have this knowledge. This woman that appears is our GM, the strongest person in the team. It appeared from one invitation for an inspirational lecture in an IT company. In the middle of a storm that I was barely holding the

whole chaos on my shoulders, they called me to inspire people. I would make them cry probably. But I say, I feel like I have to go. This is my dude. They're calling me. I went. They liked so much, even if I was not happy with what I did there, they liked so much that the organizer lady called me a few days later and said, hey, I really want to do something good for you. Don't think I'm hitting on you. I have family and stuff. i just really what you do you know your story and how can i help and i said i need technological guy that technologue guy who know how to stitch not just a

worker on the stitching machine but a guy who know technology in this textile world but i need really good not a mediocre random person and she said no problem i find no way i never really trust this is gonna happen this way and this person and this lady call me a few days later and say i find your your your guys is actually the old lady and i'm coming with her right now and say great i'm waiting here in the shop i cannot believe what i'm waiting and they came and this lady looked like she she came out of the french museum like so elegant I never seen a lady on her age so elegant, so

cool, like with energy almost stronger than ours, like super full power. And she'd been working for Moncler, for Fila, for big world brands in Switzerland. And she actually retired in Switzerland and been also working in Bulgaria and many other companies and factories. And her job has been mainly to fix things. She go in the production place and make from a chaos order. but this mean many people fly out of the window. And she come and say, listen, two things. Don't talk to me about money because I'm retired. I have my pension. I'm not here about money. I come to help. I'm like, oh, great. And the other thing is when I step into an operation, normally a lot of people get fired just to let you know. And

I was like, no, please. He's already small.

However, those people that were already stitching the harness, and by the way, no, I'm switching too fast. She came inside and she said, wow, wow, amazing stuff. Wow, you actually have to give me advice how to do things. You already, wow, like she cannot believe what she's seeing. But then she started looking into the detail and then, oh, hola, mamma mia. It's not how you should do it and all that stuff. i've been promised basically by the previous workers that they can do what i want but they do it like wrestling everything is unique prototype you cannot give this to production and it has a lot of problems and basically she had to re-innovate the whole product from scratch to make it like to be 100

symmetrical and with technology how you connect panel to panel and this and that and this and that And she's been working six months straight, even Saturday and Sunday often, without single Euromath. So this story is pretty inspiring because with all the other bad luck and difficulties, the universe balanced my way. Wow, man. I think listening to your storytelling for the past few minutes, it's like one

Aninder: saying comes to my mind. And that is like, when you want something with all your heart, the universe basically conspires you to achieve it and throws you in the right path and makes everything comes in your way. So that's The girl walking into your store and this lady coming into your life and everything else. It just seems like quite a blissful place to be. Yeah, but the test was pretty heavy beforehand. Yeah.

Veselin Ovcharov: so heavy that now this lady often jokes like what i did like why i came to this it's like never ending story i'm seeing my life like like over with the amount of work we have and with the products we want to develop in future other products it's we are now expanding we get this finance that is going to give us basically money to pay salary to these people like for six months we will have money to buy more machines we will buy money to we'll have money to buy more materials in bigger quantity that will improve the price but still in the end is a very niche boutique product

that my dream was actually to develop in custom size person can order in his unique size like skydiving So we really look forward to develop the product to the maximum detail. And we are almost finished, but there is always room for more. One question that comes to my mind, Wessel, is that

Aninder: you're smashing it in Acro. You had your own fame to glory. You were making... Pretty amazing films, which were Infinity Himalaya, that was doing very well in the film festivals. And other than that, Red Bull was on board for a while and you were doing very good in the competitions and you were making a name for yourself. Like, where did your desire from, where did you switch from desire to giving back to the community at such a high cost where you're having to deal with so many stresses? Like, why do you do this, man? What's it in for you? When I started flying,

Veselin Ovcharov: basically it was like inflating a balloon with the happy, with the love of the environment, of the people. And I've been floating for nearly two decades. And I felt like this is amazing to me. And I gave back a little bit to some of the people by chance that could come visit me in my country or by other abilities. I could just by doing something for them, give back to the community. But I feel like it will be not enough my life to touch everyone. that touch me around my journey. If I just do normal social living, I have to involve myself into some suffering to build something

more big to can spread it and help more because I have friends who lose their abilities to walk from little impact. my dream is and i believe we'll be able to achieve that we're doing some r d in this stage to have active protection harness and a proper protector as well passive protector that is able to take this impact 40 kilometer around when you stole a glider or spin a glider by accident or just lack of skill people can have this little accident and just lose their ability to walk so dreams like this drive me and the switch was basically after i felt too light too big full of possibilities and power to do whatever i want and i was like okay let's do that let's do this project and and the direction is

infinite because the passive protection this has to be developed active protection the two rescue the one rescue harness the clothes dreaming to have since child almost since my teenage years have one set of clothes that you can do everything like your phone is like your office nowadays you have so many machinery from back in the days in your pocket same things i'm dreaming to have with my clothes and we're also quite near to this point that You can feel that free and consume less and be able to catch more easily the moment. If I am able to spread this to the world now, I just need to multiply these pieces, which is still a hard part. I can't wait to this sweet moment that is coming soon to be able to give it to

the athletes that we support. We support more than 10 athletes. from the very beginning before even we sell one harness just to give example companies that exist for over 30 years very shyly start sponsoring their first pilot barely yesterday and that's i have completely entirely opposite approach which came with a set of challenges because when you look the mission so idealistically and do so many good things with the intention that you're doing some so many good things For sure, not everyone will perceive it as good. We have also some difficulties, some reality checks, but that makes me more of a person who I am today, and I'm very grateful for all of that. Indeed, man. And I think you should not

Aninder: worry about pleasing everyone because that's an impossible task. But I think it warms my heart to just think about how well you're giving back to the community and your whole ideology behind it and the whole ecosystem that you're building around it. It's just wow, man. Inspired, excited, cannot wait. And thank you for letting me do a tiny bit in bringing out your story to our audiences, spreading the news across the paragliding community, across the globe. So, yeah, man, I think next topics are like endless. But while we're talking about desire and giving back and everything, can you just tell our audiences a little bit about Fly the Earth? How did the name and the brand and all of this, like what were the

Aninder: early beginnings? It was like checking with my deep self one day, maybe more than 10 years ago. I was like, what I'm really dreaming about in this

Veselin Ovcharov: life? as i'm here on the earth and the very deep down question was answer was like i really want to fly around the earth to see the beauty to connect with more more as possible with the culture with the nature and people and that can be guided by the flying i was dreaming to fly around to to connect with as many as possible magic and i flew one girl girlfriend of a friend from maui from top of the volcano all the way down to the beach stumbling over the craters she was blown away and she was very grateful and she was like i need to give you back some something she was very good

tattoo artist I'm really not a tattoo guy. I don't have any tattoo before that. And I was like, maybe you should put me this dream. So I don't want to get rid of this dream. Just put it on my leg. So she tattooed this name. And lately this name was converted into the company. And for me, it's very beautiful process of my personal dream and now giving it back to the world. And what Red Bull showed me also this community lifestyle that you organize. We had actually quite late during my relation with Red Bull, but this kind of camps that we gather together in the family and we

do crazy things on the far away place on the other side of the world. that we've never been and using the energy of all of us to create new things. My dream for Flydirt is to be able one day to move these people that I really love and support in the community to these kind of places, even more adventurous. without hotels, maybe deep in the mountain, and just use the toys and enjoy. In the end, we are struggling to build the product to elevate the human spirit and to save his life in a situation which is hard to be more grateful about contributing your life. It's not solving

everyday problems. It's something very special to me. Wow, man. Just like the last time, hundreds of questions are popping up in my mind. But I

Aninder: think if I have to narrow it down to one feeling, that is like the passion that you have behind these is like just mind-blowing, man. It's like your passion projects are so deep and enriching. And I'm pretty sure you, the person who's driving and living, is just, yeah, you're on a whole different level, I think. Be it as an athlete or be it as a commercial guy in these operations. Yeah. Yeah, it's deep and

Veselin Ovcharov: sometimes it's scary because I'm so absorbed by this whole energy of this. And then when life cracks you and you look life from other perspective, you can see this was just a speck of the other aspects of life. But that's why we are so many. Each of us contribute in a different direction and I'm happy to give my part. wow man inspiring and but i came across again it reminds me of another quote that i came across was like if your dreams don't scare you then they're not big enough so thankfully really scary though they've been really scared scary to me i remember the first step when we start with 20 000 euro i was like oh my god what i did i live with 20 000 euro before five years and i travel the world and i live

like king people ask me how i do it yeah it's easy when you follow your dream man But when you start making business, I was like, oh my God, this is not my field. And ever since it's been like roaring, like snowball effect, the size of the operation and financial part. And you start losing the feeling. It's almost like you're getting numb about that. And you start to see that it's big and scary, but that's not the important point, what you achieve and how far you went. The rest is detail, you know. Oh, love it. Love it, man. So, you know, while we are talking about

Aninder: so deeply into all of this process, just help our listeners understand, man, what does a typical day in your life look like these days? I wake up

Veselin Ovcharov: very early. I drive the kid. My favorite thing to do is to drive the kid to the school and to see all these smiles of the other parents because normally they don't have this good relation with their kids. The kid I have is probably the best kid for me in the world in any aspect. And to drop him there, it's very good. Like I did my best duty. From there on, my day is like dynamite. I can do everything. And then I go to the workshop. We work on the daily things and we are constantly switching to R&D. As much as we're fixing things that already confirm, as much as we push in like a

very tiring process for the people mind, because you have to be thinking. I cannot be like doing operation like a robot. I go them, torture them for a couple of hours. and then if i have the chance i go fly or test the harness in the mountain we have a landing next to the office i'm lucky enough to be able to land next to the office that happened very rarely but it's my perfect day if i can describe The hell days, like the hell days, the opposite, like I'm driving all around the capital to connect, to collect materials, to customs, to speak with people for manufacturing other parts. During the financing process, we had like last six months, basically we've been tortured to be playing they've

been playing with us like with marionettes because we had to 2 000 documents to get this finance for 25 of the company this bank was torturing us a lot but now we are partners so for a good for a better good and also constantly branding wings receiving wings doing some tandems teaching people and lately i've been having a lot of care to my rooted family you know to my older mom that passed away just a few weeks ago and my twin brother they they've been not good luckily my brother is here around and i've been having a lot of care between family the family i create the business so the day like passed so fast but basically my day has been passing sometimes so quick in the workshop like 12 hours boom

like oh my god i don't know when this time i eat one time per day you know not much of a water that's not good we already know start having some problems with that but yeah so many things and you have to sometimes just Find your peace, which is very difficult. Now I'm leaving to Pakistan for two months. And I'm an extreme person, I guess. I'm full on, zero time for myself. I squeeze myself like, and I start, I cannot anymore. I'm done. And then I go to my happy place. I charge myself. This year we're going there with Antoine Girard with a dream to fly over 9,000 meters.

Hopefully don't get the jet stream to be blown in China.

But I'm so lucky to be where I am and thanks to everyone out there and to know this community which inspired me to do all this. I'm more than grateful. Thanks to all of you guys and to you for doing your podcast. Much love to the world. It warms my heart. Thank you so much for those kind

Aninder: words. All I can say is you're going through a tough time personally, as you said, with some health issues and of course losing somebody as special as your mom. That's a void that can never be filled. But the drive and the passion and the way you are still working towards all of these projects and giving back to the community and having the motivation is just like heartwarming, man. I think the motivational speaker role that you had at the school or the place of invitation where you were was like you fit in right in those shoes. So keep that up. I think there's a lot to learn from a lifestyle like yours. And of course, the Pakistan expedition that you said, I think if any one of our listeners is

listening to us right now, we had the pleasure of having Antion. on our show as one of the first few guests. So he was very kind to come on board and share the story. And I remember his ambitions of telling the 9,000 meter plans that he had for 2024 because we spoke last year and he said that I checked off 8,000. Next year, I'm going to try and hit the 9,000. Please do check out that episode. I think we can put that in the show notes as well. You're going to live it anyways, but just for the perspective of our listeners who are interested in knowing how it is to fly 8,000 and

above, they can go back in the history of the show index and watch that. But while we are talking about this, Vessel, how does the next two months look like for you? What are you guys up to? What kind of fun? What is the switch off? And what is the expedition all about? This month or the

Veselin Ovcharov: leftover of this month will be for me 20 days of acclimatization in Hunza Valley. So this means hikes to 4,000 meters and some top landings over 5,000 and hopefully over 6,000 meters. Sleepover, doing exercise there, flying on the next day, hopefully, because there is no way down. To walk. And then when we acclimatize, we walk to Botoro. Actually, we take a jeep and then we walk the last part. It's a pretty long walk. Or maybe actually the last part, hopefully we fly again and we land and we're going to live one month in Concordia, 4,800 meters. We had to find our takeoff in the area at least 700-800 meters above. So basically it would be like high mountaineering every single day when you go hiking

with your 20 kilos back. 20 kilos because you had to land with your stuff. But this year, our advantage is that we're going to actually do the takeoff from Concordia. So we will be not forced and stressed to fly in the afternoon when it's normally the best conditions to fly back to the beginning of Bo Toro because there is no landing in between. You're going to break your legs probably if you bomb out there. So this is the advantage. We will be staying basically in off-site position. And our plan is to land also in Concordia. And yeah, that's more or less and hopefully have the weather because last year we went there for a month and we had only two flying days. They were the best flights of my life,

blown away by these giants around. But we were like 7,000 meters, very shy, not like even eight. And part of you want to see what is behind there. Yeah. I resonate with that feeling, man. I think that is why we fly paragliders, because we always want to get a bit more higher than we are. You want to see what is behind the clouds, you know? Yeah. No, I feel you, man. I mean, I'm finding it funny that you said 7,000 meters was not high

Aninder: enough. God damn it, 7,000 meters on a paraglider, man. This is a game in Pakistan, man. Everyone should experience one day. It's a bucket list. It is. I can imagine the mighty Himalayas and the majestic Karakorams are quite a world in itself. If you are skilled enough to navigate them, that is the key part over here. You get used to it of everything. 100%. I think that whole expedition will be a brand new show later on. We're going to save that topic for later on because this time let's focus on whatever amount of time we have on your absolutely magical project. But promise me when you come back, I think I would love to have you and Antion together on the show discussing. That would be a pleasure. Love it, love

it. But coming back to your project, Veso, version two, question number one is like, why come out with a version two? What are the first things that kind of made you start thinking about version two of the base of the harness? You mean the base harness we start producing? It actually

Veselin Ovcharov: evaluates by many versions, probably from the first one people seen to the one we have now, they've been like, oh, how many? Like the windows probably don't have so many updates so far. But basically what we did update, I spoke earlier, was just some major facts points and basically have the product to look like neat and to have the functionality and the safety to be protected, to be able to escape from any situation. That was the drive. And we are planning now to make two rescue harness, simple two rescue harness on the DNA of these three rescue harness. Like, for example, something what Woody Valley did. Very nice friend of mine, Michele Boschi, did amazing R&D for them. But they've been a bit more

commercially orientated. We have a fewer small company. We can go mad. It's a big direction. They keep... track of some sanity about the budget and stuff. But we're trying to push things to the limit and hopefully stabilize it with some other products, maybe with the functional clothes before the bank kick us in the butt because now they're partners with 25%. And basically we became from very small company into the largest company entity. and this is extremely heavy by itself accounting wise communicating wise operating wise you actually basically from what they give for a big chunk of your company big chunk let's say 30 flying off directly by some papers some commissions here

and there it's basically a heavy deal i feel like i sold my soul but again with a good purpose and that's why i'm all in and i cannot give back as you earlier wish me i have to deliver this to the community because we're in this one way going on I see. I see. But one thing that rings a bell is that

Aninder: when you're following such a passion project and you're competing with established brands like Woody Valley, how big is the industry for or the market for Acro versus cross-country? Because it seems like they are a big fish. They know how to market. They know how to have the productions and everything. But then you guys have the passion and all the energy behind it. So how does it weigh from an official and commercial point of view? Yeah, sorry for interrupting. Acro is not as big as, for example, cross-country or school, but it's the one that gives the biggest

Veselin Ovcharov: attraction to everyone, spectators and even participants, even if they're not doing it. And probably Woody Valley wouldn't be able and have the time to do this R&D if my friend was not making the deal with them. It's an incredibly heavy process and they're lucky to have it in their quiver. But as I say, it's developing a whole different stage. The difference is to compare like an apple with a pear. It's a different fruit almost. But for me, it's very difficult to think I can compete. For me, it's like establishing our name, establishing our brand recognition with this product. And then we have to be in a hurry to catch up with some other tiny things that can keep the money flowing.

Basically, before we fell, it was with one product. You cannot survive even this product. It's so amazing. But actually, as I told you, it's not making. For example, the harness I built last year, like last year for one year, we were able to build like 15 harnesses, maybe maximum for a year that I pay salary 150,000 euros. oh my god and this is without the materials and the other expenses so this basically these 10 harnesses cost me like cars and what is worse i sell them unfinished and now i'm paying them back to the clients because they were not ready yet so this is not business easy to see in a positive way but i believe we have much more than business equation here and Sooner than later, we'll find the

business equation down the path. A hundred percent, man. And I think with a heart, with a golden heart like that, where you're refunding your

Aninder: customers or managing callbacks with the right ethical mindset, I think you will definitely, you're in the right direction. So the fruits will come. But quickly, I want to touch upon the topic of prototypes and the testing. How does testing and prototypes of these harnessed We have

Veselin Ovcharov: a special machine with a hydraulic crane that we pull and with the pulleys with the metal structure is built by the certification requirements with a special dummy like a wooden torso that it costs more than my Enzo. It's like super expensive to build because it has to be perfect by requirements by 5%. correctness like 0.5 can be different from what they require and building this machine was hell of a work my ex-manager did it which i really respect him for that you know and we've been testing the harness in a load test in the harness the chassis of the harness basically i compare our harness with any other harness on the market including the big brands i don't want to say names but with all of

the other brands and our chassis is indestructible it passed the test flawlessly in every direction we torture it many times and earlier version without this massive reinforcement and improvement the harness is being tested again by me and my friends some of the best athletes in the world world champions and stuff and everyone else and harness has been holding very well and performing very well we save many lives save the life of many friends and i can say that we did more good than bad we actually didn't disappoint anyone with a real scenario of having injury or situation that he's hurt by the harness and this is being our intention maximum always so i'm very grateful because our harness is

being tested way better than any certification test which is 2 000 euro and you send the harness and they make it they make everything possible to work it's been tested by every one of us tens of pilots over hundreds of hours and even earlier version as i said it's been performing flawlessly And this final version that we're about to release soon is going to be a wow on the market, I believe. And I cannot wait to show it on Coupé Car. Oh, I love it. So it's coming out on Coupé Car, is it? In the fall? Yeah, hopefully we get the stand this time. The last few years was

many challenges, but we're finally ready. Oh, I love it, man. Cannot wait to wait for Coupé Car to come around. You just talked about the

Aninder: certification process and I've been very curious... we will have it we will have the classical certification load test and protector wise

Veselin Ovcharov: that every harness has it's coming soon just because of the requirements of the bank our investor as i told you i believe in completely different direction for me i'm the quality control and if i put the requirements that satisfy my ass and i'm very scared person it's gonna be fine But we will have the classical documents as well. That sounds great. But I'll be very thankful if you can just let our audiences

Aninder: a little bit of insight into certification because glider certification, you can see the asymmetric collapse and the amount of recovery and everything. So it's very easy to read or understand what the glider certification is. But what does a harness certification look like? What is it all about? our harness is extremely stable and you can make it very loose basically it's between ski boot and a sandal and

Veselin Ovcharov: most of the other aqua harness in the market are serving just as a sandal it cannot hold you so strong like a ski boot cannot make it so rigid our harness have stability to the maximum so let's say it can be like dsv1 and you can make it very loose like high performance glider and at the same time the harness is being mainly tested on strength ripping materials loading webbings and adjustment without the adjustment to slip over or to have any damage on the construction and hanging points and all this stuff this is made basically the certification and then it's been released from altitude like few meters on the floor and with the special instruments they measure the compression of the protector and

basically with that they confirm if the harness is passing the certification or not for example if you put just a normal foam from your bed 12 centimeter you can pass the certification all right So we're trying to do something far more beyond that. The certification is not a problem if you want, it's just a document. And the strength of the stitches is not a problem. If you want, you can stitch them on the way you have to stitch them with a good line. We use Dyneema lines and the best machines and everything. It's like overbuilt, overengineered and super strong in our harness personally. Blows my mind when you said that you can use your bed foam and pass the certification process. Are you

Aninder: kidding me, man? What's going on with that? Yes, yes. For example, let's say that the biggest wow, the highest achievement on our industry is the

Veselin Ovcharov: choroid protection, which is amazing visibly and the marketing is amazing around this product as well, but it's not optimum, far not optimum. even if it's graceful and so much better in compared to other protection system but it has so much more to improve by far and i hope to deliver that I have a question regarding Corio vessel, and I'll be very thankful if you can help our listeners understand it, because few

Aninder: designers and few guests in past have tried to stay away from it. And I don't know why. Maybe they're trying to be politically correct or not. But maybe you can help us understand that. If you remember Nick Nene's... I know, he's a friend of mine. I'm flying myself with Corio on

Veselin Ovcharov: my submarine and so on. I like it. For me, I'm a base jumper. I don't need any protection. I'm ready to take the responsibility. But I believe there is room for improvement. Let's keep it just that far. I don't know. I find it very hard that why is nobody willing to talk about Choreo so

Aninder: openly? Because to me, that protector seems dangerous at times. Yes, because it can be. Obviously, some people already lost their ability to

Veselin Ovcharov: walk with this kind of protection, but you can lose the ability to walk with any other of the common market protector if we don't make something urgently. This is a common problem in general. And Koroids make it a really big step in direction if you really have a violent crash, like if you're going in a full-on route rotation. You can use this technology to save your bones and your ability to walk probably but in between there is also a power of impacts that also can damage you. That's the problem and also the direction of impact is limited. To activate this system you need to impact more likely in one direction. And you cannot choose in which direction you're going to impact the ground. So the protection

needs to be more like hexagon from everywhere, like molecules, not like these just straight shocks. We are not with mountain bike. We're not with bicycle. And there is much more room for improvement. And they did something amazing. And they marketed so far that they spread it beyond paragliding. It's in skiing, helmets, and so on. So many people believe and for sure this works. But like everything, it has pluses and minuses. The thing is how many pluses it has and how many minuses. We can add more pluses probably. That's what I think. All right. I'm not going to pull

Aninder: this discussion any longer because of the complicated scenario behind it. But do you think, if we have to find a conclusion behind Korea, does it have more pluses than minuses or is it the other way around? For me, if you allow yourself to impact the ground, for example, if your pilot cannot

Veselin Ovcharov: control your stall situation and you're going to impact with some funny speed, better don't use corroid. But if you're going to use it only when it's going hard, like you're in a really fucked up situation, you're going to crash because nothing else works. then it's good. I think it's good for good pilots, Koroid, because you're going to avoid some cheeky crash. But still, nobody's insured. I have a good friend, one of the best acro pilots, Andre Prohas, can break his ass with ultralight harness without any protection. So even if you're good, but it's less likely, let's say. But if you're a beginner pilot, maybe better get a classical protector. You will be more all-rounded protected. All-round

protected. Like more possibilities, more scenarios where you'll be protected. So that makes a lot of sense. And I think that makes

Aninder: decision-making for a buyer when they go out in the market a whole lot easier. When I buy my submarine with this, I'm like, oh, okay. I know

Veselin Ovcharov: myself. I will keep it conservative.

Aninder: All right. Yeah, of course, knowing your own abilities is the main thing. Another question that comes to my mind, Vesa, with harnesses is that in gliders, we are obviously able to have a set number of hours for their lifespan. If you've flown a glider for three, four hundred hours, that glider is done. No matter how many times you change the line, the fabric porosity will tell you and all of that things will basically let you know that this glider is not safe or airworthy anymore. Harnesses. Okay, carabiners have a five-year limit where they're recommended to be changed in five years. But harnesses are like, as you're saying, you're making an indestructible harness. A lot of other harnesses are

really good, like XR7 and a few other harnesses are like super sturdy. And I've seen pre-owned harnesses coming on the market after 10 years. And the ones who don't have that kind of money but still want to enjoy the art of flight and are fascinated by aviation is like, oh, fine, I got a cheap deal. I'm going to buy this. As a customer, when you have to make a decision of buying a pre-owned harness or even a new harness, what is the metric that you can understand that you can define the lifespan of a harness and how do you understand whether it's still airworthy or not?

Veselin Ovcharov: you can see about some parts of the harness the stitches if the stitches change color or you find different colors around the edge edges of the harness that can mean it's been exposed a long time on the sun and basically you have to choose harness which is not being left outside of the sun on the sun is the webbings where it's adjustment buckles to see if the webbing is complete without any damages on the corner because good looking webbing if you have a little cut on the edges it's over some little details basically like buying a jacket it can be a second hand but you need to look some details and basically the harness lasts way more than any glider and the one we built i believe it's going to last forever

maybe the very outside that we use this futuristic material it might have some life expectancy to be shorter but i believe will be longer than any other thing on the market so again i'm very positive about it Love your honesty, man. I wish every other brand was this honest and had the

Aninder: courage to bring out complete transparency. But to sum up this topic, do you think there should be a defined lifespan for harnesses? Should there be something? A harness, I think, should be at least three to five years minimum. And for sure, on the major points, you can give life

Veselin Ovcharov: warranty. On the attachment points, for example, if it's base system or any other attachment points. and we're working on that to give live warranty action at some point as soon as we are able to spread the operation and be focused only on quality control we will be definitely probably one of the first to say that hopefully Love it, love it, Vessel. And I think on that note, as we are reaching the end of the show, one

Aninder: question that rings my mind is, how does your visualization look like, man? What's the next innovation? What is the way forward? How does acro paragliding and the harness design car look in time to come? It's a very open-ended question, I know that. Let your creativity flow free. Acro

Veselin Ovcharov: is going through the roof. I'm blown away. Actually, I lose the rhythm. to keep up with the new tricks things couple of years already but i can see that it's still room for more and more for me the size of the gliders is a radical step myself i already have 14 meters i've flown it just a few times and the ability to have this short break travel with such efficiency allow you to do these crazy combos and definitely beyond the reverse and twisted tricks i think the combinations are like using the energy of the glider like now there is no no difference between transition from negative to positive or positive to negative before it was just possible possible from positive to negative now you can

connect both ways both direction physically by the rotation of the glider it's hard to imagine more things coming up, but I'm sure there will be more things. I leave that to the young guns. And we will just do our best to keep them alive with the best harness. Wow, love it, man. But also

Aninder: do you wanna do you have some visualizations or dreams? Like what's next in harness design after this? Or like, how do you see harnesses from 510 years from now? What could be possibly coming? I don't need some hardware like, for example, like drones have sensors for the active

Veselin Ovcharov: protection system that we're working, system that you can put on and off or student mode or pro mode. that can inflate the protection in addition to save you from an impact. That's definitely a must. And also a small anti-G or even total parachute extraction by this CD, automatic device deployment, this instrument like in skydiving. it's totally existing things that we just need to merge together and this is our actually final product in the pyramid of flight year product line to have this one simple rescue harness but with the safety protection system which is actually what you need to when you impact the ground with or without parachute you need to be safe you know you need to be able to to lose to be

able to throw the reserve you need system to give you anti- g feeling some system that pops a anti-g parachute so you don't lose conscious and you can throw your parachute i had friends of mine that i was teaching they lose conscious just from a simple spiral and go all the way to the water and the guy who pulled his friend out of the water like jesus He was still alive. He was alive. He survived. And he told me, ah, no problem. They all survived like three, four per year during the SAV courses. Wow, we need to build this that you can activate even by Bluetooth, like instructor

from the ground or have a system that harness. Simple technology. We've basically been flying rucksacks for decades in this amazing sport that deserves so much more. But the technology just drifts the other way. Where is the money? Where is the mass need? And this is still a niche sport. But we're really fighting to do it equally with the other industries to catch up. We're fighting a lot about that. I think it's

Aninder: mind-blowing, the visualization and the dreams you have for this. And as you said, we don't have to reinvent the wheel. This is already there in other sports. We just have to intertwine it and just make it happen. Yes. It's been probably happening many years before I even started doing

Veselin Ovcharov: these harnesses to many people. But because it's so hard, they probably give up or stop or lose the direction. I'm not a genius. I'm just connecting dots, which is obvious. And I hope I keep doing that. I think you will. 100% you will. Before we close, we have this tradition on the

Aninder: show that I request my guests to share one life experience from the blue yonder, from the sky that I stuck with you. So I know this is a very open-ended question, but if there's any specific story that comes to your mind that you would want to share with our audiences in this regard, I'll be very thankful. In special stories, I go back to the roots. Just go hug your mom and take her for a tandem flight. That would be the greatest

Veselin Ovcharov: thing to do. Wow. Words of wisdom, Wessel. Words of wisdom. And I hope you and your family find the strength to move on and in a more meaningful

Aninder: manner. On that note, Wessel, I think heartfelt thanks for such an open-ended conversation, man. And it's so inspiring to see you guys put in all the effort and energy. And needless to say, super inspired. And I will do my part. I hope our audiences will do theirs because you are definitely doing yours in making this sport a better place for everyone else. So thank you so much, Veso. It's been an absolute pleasure to bring you on the show, man. Namaste. Thank you. Namaste.