Pal Takats on Challenges, Change & The Future of Paragliding

Guest: There is the kind of forces and movements in the air that even if you are the best pilot in the world and acro and whatever, you will not necessarily be able to keep that glider open. And this to me, it's just too much. I'm not willing to take that risk anymore. It shouldn't be about who is willing to take more risk. It should be always about who is the best pilot. Do we want to keep people happy or alive? I'm not saying change your opinion. I'm not saying pick sides. But all I'm saying is, why are we starting to

Aninder: censor reality, even from the professional levels? Yeah, that's also my question.

Hello, everyone. Welcome back to Paragliding Atlas podcast. and thanks to each and every one of you coming back every week and listening to us this is an incredible number that i'm sharing for the first time with you guys that thanks to you we are now streaming to more than 95 countries across the globe and today i get to welcome back a guest who has been a big part of making this possible for me. And I'm indebted to him because he believed in the mission of Paralyzing Atlas. Before the show was even out, he was kind enough to come on board. And welcoming back, once again, Paul Tuckertz.

Guest: Yeah, congratulations, man. You are getting there. Thanks for your work. Thank you. Thank you, Paul. And I'm so excited to basically have

Aninder: you here. I think it was autumn of 2013, you know, when we had just connected and you were taking your trip in Norway. You had just finished Excel. And I do remember that you did a base jump spontaneously. Yes. So what excited me about it is that even in that sudden improvisation of some sort to your trip, you followed that with the utmost professionality of choosing to jump a onesie instead of a full-flying suit, keeping the safety margins and reward. No, actually, I didn't even know exactly the place where I'm going. I didn't research it. And

Guest: then it ends up being this base paradise. And I meet some old friends. I watched them jump and then, yeah, he offered me to borrow one of his rigs. After some hesitation, I decided to jump, but not in a onesie. It was just a slick jump in jeans and no tracking equipment. It was fun, but I'm not jumping much anymore. Sometimes I wonder, you know, what has it taken to be Paul Takats? You are a man who has won so many hats. You have crushed

Aninder: endless goals and lived a life that pretty much everyone could imagine. So yeah, what has it taken to get where you are?

I don't know. It was just everything evolved one thing after the other. I started flying with 16 years old and I just learned out of passion and

Guest: motivation. This was a natural evolution and it wasn't really a goal setting thing. It was just... I was just enjoying my life, flying paragliders and begin to travel around with it. And yeah, the rest is history. That's like 25 years ago and me and also the sport has evolved a lot. Or at least, I don't know, maybe it's just people getting older and seeing the same things with different eyes and from different perspectives. You know what, Paul? You are one athlete who has progressed through his career and more or less practices what he

Aninder: preaches. Because you have advocated safety by... including the norms and the values by yourself first. I think your recent post, which started gathering a lot of attention and has set a ball or a conversation which was long pending rolling. When did you start realizing that we as a community are going down this path where we are kind of reaching the point of no return? Good question. I think it was a longer process. And

Guest: it's not necessarily that it has been very different in the past. I guess it was very similar since I'm flying and competing in cross-country flying. More and more people pass away and seeing the way we as a community are handling these events, which is often... yeah this is the danger the risk we take or at least he died loving what he was doing this kind of almost stupid phrases just became normal to accept and i don't really agree with this because i feel like there is a lot of things that Maybe the community now accepts it's normal, but that could be improved. I don't agree. I really believe that there is a way to do this better, to do this safer. And I think we should discuss together ideas

and be open to different solutions. I'm happy that although some things I stated sound very controversial or maybe untrue for part of the community, but At least the positive thing about it, that it started people thinking and reacting. There is this conversation going, not only on social media, but also in chat groups, including pilot communities all around the world, but also at federation association levels. I know that they are very active and they are also communicating with each other. I'm not really involved in any of those groups, but I... have sources here and there and yeah i think it's it's a positive development and let's hope that we can keep the momentum going to

achieve something here i think this is not the right way of doing things and that we could be doing things better maybe changing the gliders or certification criteria is not necessarily the solution but there is other things that we can do for sure And unfortunately, the process within the institutions is often bureaucratic and slow, which is what it is. I'm not criticizing anybody. I'm overwhelmed because it wasn't really my intention, but I wasn't really thinking about it at the time of writing. But obviously, this sparked a very also political conversation. And the time of my publication, I had no idea what was Julian about to do. It also surprised me what came next the other day. But

this is what it is. Some heavy rocks are enrolling and let's hope that it can spark. Amazing. Paul, yesterday I was speaking with your friend,

Aninder: Sarge, and he mentioned a couple of things that stuck with me. The first one I mentioned is that there's rule-based safety where, you know, safety depends on the rules that what kind of things they allow or how unsafe they allow the sport to get. Then there's culture-based safety, which is how things are done by your peers. So I think when it comes to rule-based safety in paragliding, we are not really having much of an issue because they have been well-written by some of the most thorough minds in the sport. they cover a wide array of possibilities. But When it comes to culture-based safety, we have consistently seen a slack of some sorts, considering that we cater to a group that is trying to make

this sport a professional one, where there are pilots out there in the world that are doing whatever they can to make a 9-to-5 living out of it, or an equivalent living that a 9-to-5 would give them. However, at the same level, we also see alcohol being... incentivized of some sorts on the landing fields to pilot who is like thirsty tired is at its yeah like all of those overrunning with emotions and you give the person a chance here's alcohol a chilled one or here is water so it's weird how we combine all of these in the same equation My question to you is, how on earth did we

reach a cultural flaw where the culture-based safety has gone out for a toss, which eventually we see trickle down in various hierarchical assets?

Guest: You touched many things there. Yes, there are the rules and there is a structure now that is supposed to keep us safe, but it's not enough if pilots or the staff of a competition is not really enforcing it the right way or not using it the right way. And I have to agree with many of the comments that in my post that the gliders are not the problem it's either task setting or the pilot's behavior which is i have to say in my view it's quite reckless and disrespectful towards each other in many ways in the air not really on the ground but uh

We fly, we look at the other one like competitor and not really as another human being, I have the feeling. And that's how sometimes situations happen in the air, especially in crowded spaces that, for example, people commit to a turn without actually knowing where they're going to end up, like between... Some of those guys, they just go towards a bunch of people and basically force them to give space to him instead of only going into turns where he knows exactly or she. He's going to end up accommodating himself in the crowd. And there is another problem is that, of course, we are racing and there's always somebody pushing ahead and often dragging the others with him. groups of people

collectively get into tricky situations or even risky dangerous situations this is unfortunately kind of part of the competition and i don't think that there is much to expect in terms of changing this general behavior because it's a competition so You cannot expect people to slow down or climb more or whatever they feel like the right move is in the present moment. They're just going to go for it, not necessarily think about the consequences. Paul, I think you touched upon very important points here where the responsibility lies a lot on

Aninder: an individual level as well rather than on an institutional one.

Guest: Yeah, one thing I would like to say, and this is one of the good points of Julian, I think, regarding competition safety and organizer responsibility. The organizers, and again, I'm not necessarily giving them... I'm just pointing out the problem because I understand. I've been the mid-director of the super final in Rodanillo some years ago. I was not officially, but I was kind of the guy executing the job. I know how the pressure from the pilots is wearing on you when you have to make quick and very... important decisions I'm also a pilot myself so I know exactly when you spend 5000 euro on gear and another 3000 to travel somewhere not even counting the holidays you took off from work and the

missing income it's a lot of money that you spend on a hobby basically because you mentioned efforts to professionalize things but I think we are so far off being professionals and this is probably part of the reason why the problem is that The pilots go somewhere and they want to fly and they express it and like with any other decision, no matter rule-based or organizational-based decisions, you cannot satisfy everybody. There will always be people, even if you believe you're doing the best thing. for everybody but there will be always people who will not like it and the same way if you stop a task or cancel a day there's gonna be always people complaining there is always or many times

there's gonna be people proving you that a the task was possible we went free flying and did this and that so it's very hard to act under this pressure unfortunately we are really exposed to the elements i feel like the risk we are willing to take is sometimes just a little too much we could also see this i wasn't present but i saw videos and i heard the reports about strong winds and certain conditions being over the limit of what is healthy and still despite many people calling level three The task was not stopped or it was stopped way too late. No matter if we... The

tragic accident of Timo Leonetti, who was left... on the mountain for an hour and a half until rescue was alerted and things like this despite life tracker despite people trying to contact the organization despite him having a second life tracker and all of them showing the same issue this kind of things should not happen that accident happened in the hot spot of europe's helicopter rescue operations Around the Chamonix area, it's not that it's missing infrastructure. It's just that it was a human error. Imagine similar accidents happening in South America or some other places where there is not a helicopter or maybe only coming an hour later or whatever. So there's a lot of areas where we

should be able to improve. As many people wrote, maybe the gliders are not the problem. so yeah i'm in a lot of discussions right now with many great people and i love to see that there is good ideas popping up everywhere some of which are old in the past those ideas were often ignored downplayed or not welcomed some of my ideas are not welcome but Yeah, once again, there will be no decision, no change that everybody will be happy with, guaranteed. So at some point we have to make a compromise. Do we want to keep people happy or alive? I love the way you

Aninder: put it there, Paul. That's a very deep and lasting question which all of us want to ask within ourselves. Do we want to keep people happy or do we want to keep people alive? What is the priority here? What are we chasing as a community? I'd like to take a moment and reflect upon your analogy with something in commercial aviation, because the accidents that you mentioned, which had human error, are incomparable when it comes to commercial flight safety. Partly being, of course, it's a much larger industry, so there's much more money involved. There are much more at stake. But what I want to highlight is that both us and them are flying an aerofoil and are getting the same reward, that is the flight. So if they

Aninder: can build up a professional network, we don't have to reinvent the wheel here. We just have to tweak it a little bit. I think the alcohol analogy is the perfect example because imagine a flight crew landing after a five-hour flight and being served chilled beers as soon as they get off the aerobridge. What I want to highlight is that if commercial pilots at the top of the line started doing this, the pilots in flight schools, the pilots who are learning the sport, aren't going to be very different. They will say that when they are doing this in their regular top level, we will definitely go for beers after every flight. So it sets a wrong precedent to the younger generation to follow their idols. The point

being that commercial flying, if they have this kind of an incident, it takes a whole bureau and a boat to ensure that it never repeats and all the possibilities are explored. Yeah, it's deep, it's big. And I'm not saying that we eclipse it, but at least we can try and mimic it to the point where it starts making a difference rather than just saying that it's a part of the game. Just get over it. Yeah, exactly. We have to move from

Guest: accepting that it's a part of the game and not thinking about solutions. Of course, it's a dangerous sport. We are not supposed to hang around under some nylon strings in the air, but there will always be fatalities, but we are pushing it a lot, pushing ourselves into, yeah, exposing ourselves too much. We accepted this. A victory is maybe even more glorious, I don't know, it's maybe stupid to say, but... I'm sure a percentage of the people... enjoys the adrenaline rush, and part of the reason why we are addicted to paragliding or competition flying, even those who will not admit this, is the dopamine hit, endorphin. It's the hormones that flood our brain during those tense moments. We are not

racing because we find it boring. We race because it's super intense and risky, and we know it. The more risky it is, the more... Intense reaction is released by the body. Back to your beer analogy, I never heard anybody talking about landing beer being a problem, but I guess because it's so intense, basically from the waiting around in the start gate throughout the race and into the final glide, making goal, and then you land and you are really... In this hyped up phase and the beer or for some a cigarette is like this kind of calming down or coming back down to earth or getting that little buzz to feel better. It's a very intense and diverse topic, Paul. And I do understand that there can be endless point

Aninder: of views that can go around. But one thing I would like to highlight here is that we have seen the sport evolve and grow continuously. Over a fair bit of time, you know, with, I think, a decent bit of R&D, money wasn't really a big problem. You can't say that it held back things. We have maxed out triple Cs and are constantly evolving. But in 2011, there was a watershed moment when it made us look back and say that regardless of our progress and whatever other factors that allow us to do this sport, there is something that we are doing wrong and we need to pull back. So my

Aninder: question to you is that this moment to say a sort of which Julian has started, why now, Paul? Why does it matter now?

Guest: No, it always matters. But yeah, it's just a result of things that have been accumulating over time. And without having to mention names, we have lost friends. We are losing them way too often. I already told myself last year, partially it was triggered by some of those accidents, partially because the way we are flying in competition, the aggressiveness, the tense moments, the pushing... to the limits many times people like don't care if it's a lee side or next to the cliff they're gonna go full bar anyways because somebody's doing it everyone else is gonna do it and basically this kind of self-style mentality is really spilling over we can i think see it more and more inside

competition flying which it's supposed to be stopped but it's not stopped yet we just keep going until Maybe it gets even worse, which is already bad, but let's see if we can push a little more. I think it's too much. And also there was a fatality in Turkey, then Brazil, and it was already a very controversial event. I was fully aware of Marcela's death. shout out or cry out for not changing the venue like almost half a year ago which was already a bit of an extraordinary development and it was shut down in a very ugly fashion and it was even threatened So that was also one thing I didn't really like. In fact, it turned out that she was right and the conditions were not the best. Of course, you could go

off-season somewhere and still have great conditions, maybe even better than the commonly known and flown season. But normally it's good to go to places where you have statistics that it's the right time to go. And then, yeah, thanks to Serge, we also went to China to a World Cup, which we abandoned after the first task. Because the takeoff was a level three takeoff, a cliff and a flat slope behind it, but quite a fair bit back. It was basically a huge rotor, very hot, very dry climate, spiky thermals, plus the wind and the lee side causing very dangerous starts and takeoff conditions and really an unpredictable outcome. You could have somebody launching right in front of you and having absolutely no

problem going up and passing a dangerous zone. eventually getting into some rougher air but nothing crazy then the next guy just 30 seconds later is getting huge collapses more violent air or maybe first sink and then catching the lee side and i didn't like the fact that the organization who took us there basically knew exactly how it was gonna be because they have been there before and when i started to kind of come like i didn't communicate this at all you are the first one that i'm telling this to publicly but I didn't like the fact that they knew this is how it is. They brought relatively low-level World Cup there and basically accept those 120 or whatever, 80 or 100 people who were there.

to take that risk and like canceling a task was not an option at all or not even on the table because even the meat director was local he didn't really speak much english or nothing at all but because he's local and he knows this as normal For him, there was no reason to think anything bad or thinking that this is maybe too much or dangerous. And in fact, there were some incidents and accidents. And I was afraid that it can happen to me as well, because really a bit of a Russian roulette. I'm willing to take risk in certain moments, maybe even more than other people. I'd

rather do this in moments and in places and conditions where I believe that I can have an edge over what can happen. Possibly happens. Taking off from the ground and facing this crazy turbulence so close to the ground, I don't have any edge at all. My only edge is that if I can keep my glider open, I can probably get away. But there is the kind of forces and movements in the air that... even if you are the best pilot in the world and acro and whatever, you will not necessarily be able to keep that glider open. And to me, yeah, it's just too much. I'm not willing to take

that risk anymore. Like I think, and Julian is also on the same opinion that the pilot's, needs and safety should be taken into more into consideration and prioritized more in terms of where we are going to fly and why we are going to fly. It's a nice incentive to go to some faraway places and get to know new areas, but there is huge differences between flying conditions and safety in flight, depending on where you take that 100, 120 people. If you go to Turkey, where it's all yellow and dry and kind of stable, but the sun is strong, so there's still thermals and dust all over the place, it's way more likely that it's going to be overwhelming, demanding for some. And even for those who are good to

handle these situations, you just never know when it's going to catch them somehow. And I think this is touching... Another point, which is the ignorance part of the community who believe too much that they are good pilots and that's not going to happen to them. And those are probably the same people. Yeah, this is the risk we take and say stuff like similar things. But I think this is not the majority and those voices shouldn't be the loudest ones or the ones that are taking the most attention. Like, of course, I understand organizing a competition. There is a lot of money involved if you count the sum of the money that people pay. But there is also a lot of expenses and you have to travel with

a crew there. And you have all the equipment you need and the local organizer. You have to pay all. It's not a business to get rich. And you need the help of sponsors and locals just because... A city is envisioning that their city is going to become the next free-flying capital in the world, which is happening everywhere in the world, that it's easy for people to get this illusion that, oh, there is paragliding going on here, we bring an event here. And wow, this is the future. This is the solution for tourism and whatever. And then they pump in a lot of money and more events start to come. Not necessarily because it's such a great place to fly, but because there is the money to support it. And it

can be great, and we all like to see the world, new places and new cultures, but there should be a line and a system in place to evaluate the risk level of a certain place. I'm really happy to tell you that there is actually something ready to go, a concept pretty much ready to implement, which is about... categorizing events, we should also probably categorize gliders the same way, because it seems like EN certification is not enough to take care about all the aspects of a glider's behavior. It's a lot of, maybe you can say that it's objective, but there is also a subjective part. And there is also sometimes in tests, it is something, but in reality, it's still ending up being

something else. I think we should have this, hopefully very soon, it can be implemented on Air Tribune, I hear. Basically, a grading from like A to E, where A is green and it turns yellow to red in terms of how safe an event is. And it will have conditions to consider not only the infrastructure and the medical attention. Is there a helicopter? No. Like all different criteria to gain points and then depending on how many points in which category is given, then you can have this result of is it safe, higher risk or very high risk events. Let's say Colombia should be very high risk because there is no helicopter, you can land in the bush. There is no path to walk to get you. And by the time anybody gets

to you, it can be too late. I think this is a very good thing. And then now we are talking way, way different because then if you, let's say you have the same sort of system for gliders as well, these things probably should be decided by the pilots or a pilot union, which we are also talking about with some great minds. There is very necessary to have a pilot union with an influence also into politics or at least some important decisions where the sport should be developing towards and heading to. Because now if you go to a red event with a red glider, now we can say, okay, that guy who died now, he went to a red event with a red glider. That was his choice. He took the risk. He was fully aware of the

risk. So now we can say, okay, shit happens. But as long as we go to places where we expect everything to be fine with gliders that we trust because it is certified in whichever category and then it will still, you might get into trouble, not necessarily because just the gliders fall, it can be pilot error, but it can be also a combination of being in the wrong place, in rough air, in a demanding place with a demanding glider. That way we can have more clarity in terms of Why these accidents are happening? Because there are no two same accidents. This is just another point that we should immediately collect all the intelligence of all the federations, all the associations that have records of

accidents, especially competition-related accidents, because there are many and almost too many, and now people seem to be some... organizations seem to be this is what I see this is what Julian sees and this is one of the triggers that kind of was the last drop in the glass you really have to become a private detective sometimes to know if somebody is still alive or is he gonna be okay if you are not in the whatsapp group of the comp even harder you probably will not even hear about it unless you have a friend there telling you it's not really being reported in a way that that it should be and it's not being recorded for us to learn which is like you mentioned aviation before which is totally unthinkable in any

other discipline of aviation to not investigate and categorize not just that Paul I would like to jump in and get your point of view on this that I've been wondering since quite a while that why are we becoming a sport where censorship is becoming normal I'd like to take the example

Aninder: of Ex-Alps, where a number of pilots dropped out, notable names, you know. You, in particular, did not even sign up on the start line. Maxime very vocally said that this is not my cup of tea for now. Tim Alonji was a little bit in the news. But all of these were just swept under the carpet. And it was just like a celebration of how fast the race was and how Kriegel could not hold his throne, how Aaron outshined everyone, but there was no talk about the other end of the race. And I specifically want to No, not just that, Paul, but let's say there's a very viral video leak from

Excel's media base where you can see Tim struggling to climb up a mountain. He's not in the best of his minds and a reporter rushes up and says, hey, how do you feel right now? The reply of Tim was blatantly hidden away. You could see Gavin signaling to the camera crew that, hey, cut this midway. I'm not going to pinpoint on any specific name here, but if... Players or people who have been in the driving seat as a pilot, who know what is right and what is wrong, who know black and white, why do they become a part of decision-making where they say that it's okay to show

Aninder: one side of the sport and not the reality? I'm not saying change your opinion. I'm not saying pick sides. But all I'm saying is, why are we starting to censor reality? even from the professional levels? Yeah, that's also my question. Luckily for us, the outburst of Tim was

Guest: actually live. So I also recorded, I screen grabbed the video because I was quite sure that this will be removed. And in fact, it was removed from the version published on YouTube. Not only that, but other moments I know of that, you know, for sure Red Bull cameras filmed and I know that there is the official film out now and I didn't see it, but I'm 100% sure they are not willing to show everything and is precisely selected to show it just as hardcore as they are to present it. Because I think the reality is even for the organizers themselves is a little too hardcore. And they are, I think, afraid of... Paul, I'd like to clarify here. Red Bull as an organization, I understand, as a media, I entrust there is

Aninder: capitalistic gains in their vested business model. I'm talking about the athletes who are part of the tribe, who are the core members. Yeah, I

Guest: don't know. Maybe some of them are just not willing to speak up for

any... I don't know. But what I was going to say, one thing is for sure that most athletes are not willing to, are not open to accept any sort of rule change or any more rules than what is already in existence in terms of the X-Labs. I know because I try to present some new ideas that I think are really good and that would make the event probably even more interesting. It's spectator-friendly and interesting for the sponsors. This concept seems to be very rigid. The idea of adventure racing through the Alps is amazing, but I'm just not 100% sure if Hannes Ark would be still alive. I'm asking myself if he would be happy seeing what his baby, his vision has become in terms of... like how in terms of

setting a very bad example it's very a nice idea to have this adventure race and of course it was very clear from day one that those people are gonna take more risk than in general in paragliding many of those people are actually very happily take those risks and they very happily show themselves as some of the best pilots in the world which they are but some of them are far from being the best pilots in the world. So only a few are willing and ready to not take off in conditions and places where some other guys have already taken off and flew away. That's the very small

minority that is having the strength to say no, because it's really much more difficult to say no than to go for it. I was feeling great and proud of flying in very demanding conditions and being able to handle it. And the spectators so far have also seemed to have liked it. But now it seems like some are not aligned with this anymore. I don't think this is going to change. It's also rectified to have one event like this. But if we are talking about hike and flight, the sportive side should not be about who is willing to take the most risk, but who is the best hike and flight

pilot. The two things can be far away.

And it's the same what I'm trying to tell the world about the competition scene of cross-country. This mentality has maybe always been there, but being more and more tolerated or supported by the organizers who are calling the shots in terms of do we fly now or do we cancel or stop. And the pressure from the pilots is high. It shouldn't be about who is willing to take more risk. It should be always about who is the best pilot. And it can be decided without having to... Very well said there, Paul. It should be about the best pilot without chasing the boundary of limits or pushing

Aninder: them consistently. But let's talk a little bit about administration, Paul, because that is also a big part of this discussion overall. Politics usually is involved where there's money involved, right? We are a sport where money is by far the least accessible. Nobody comes into the sport for the sake of making money, so monetary incentive is fairly less. At the same time, there are some people who are trying to make it work for them. When it comes to administration, this is illustrated in ways that let's say one person is doing multiple things. He's also organizing an event. He's also running the board. He's also the president of his local club. And at the same time, he also has a role in

Aninder: work group six. So one person holding a Number of decision- making posts. Is that one of the main reasons why you mentioned politics and money are kind of slowing down the growth of paragliding? I didn't say it is slowing down. I'm just afraid that it can take us the wrong direction

Guest: for the wrong reasons. And those directions should be set by what is... making the sport better and what is keeping the pilots safer at the first place and then be by politics and money instead of the other way around to be honest i don't really know enough about it learn more about politics in paragliding the last few days than probably all of my paragliding career you have a lot of data man but i agree that it's not good to have people with interest in other like multiple positions at this yeah julian is completely correct i think we have to separate the two things i don't want to attack anybody in those positions because I personally still believe that they want the best for us it's just that maybe the

system itself is not good enough to give them the right framework and all the bureaucratic is taking way too long and also it's very difficult and a very slow grinding annoying process to To talk about any change with a bunch of people in the same room and everybody's having their two cents and everybody's having their point of view and ideas, you can have the best idea in the world and somebody's going to be against it. So it must be difficult and that's why we have to be careful in giving anybody or pointing any fingers because... I personally, I like Goran, I like Bill. I don't know about the details enough about their work. I see certain things that I disagree with and I hope that they had a very good

reason to do. I don't know. That's why I'm not judging. I'm just hoping that that's what Julian is saying also, that we don't necessarily need other people. But if there is a conflict of interest, that is better if it's resolved. Before we close in on this, Paul, I want to get your idea on

Aninder: the 2011 part, which was largely driven by the manufacturer vision because it was gatekeepers of the industry making sure that the innovation of the change is going in one way. Is this deep down something similar? Because the monopolization of the sport is pretty much still the same. And it is same looking field with same people and same gliders. Is this relatable?

Guest: No, I don't think so. What I'm saying is there is a framework, there is limitations of what a glider should fulfill. And yeah, I speak a lot to it. Look, I'm on yesterday and it was a very interesting conversation. And I really needed that because I just don't have the expertise of designing gliders. But in fact, what became clear is that no matter what rules you set, there will be always that optimum design to fit gliders. those criterias the best glider will be the one that is just getting there on the limit but not passing the limit and i think it's good that we stopped the open class it was causing way too many fatalities maybe even more than these days we have come really far with the ccc but if you look at

for example like when the ccc class was born And since when the ENSO tree is in existence, you can tell that because the rules have stayed the same, ozone was able to find a sweet spot for that set of rules. That's why there is no progression they could squeeze out any further because the rules are still the same. That was a big tragedy in 2011. Among the two fatalities in the same day, there were many other reserve openings and a lot of action and accidents every day. And basically the most spectacular presentation of... This sport should not be about, okay, now today we take off 120 people, but maybe tomorrow we're going to be only 119 and the day after 118. Come on, what are we doing? It's not a

gladiator show. It's almost like Formula One used to be that it was the fact that any one of the drivers can die in any event and they were regularly... crashing and dying and burning alive. It was part of being a hero of Formula One, except that they were making millions and we are standing and not making any money. And I don't know who did you mean when you said that people are trying to make a living because there is no living to be made, except if you go tandem flying, give courses or test gliders or teach people. There is not really a professional... side of things we are risking our lives for fulfilling or feeding our ego and seeing ourselves a few positions higher in the world ranking that

nobody is giving interest there is no sponsorship to win or lose except maybe if you are super lucky you get a discounted glider or in the best case scenario you get one for free but I don't know about many people who are at that level. So there's really much more that we can lose than what we can win. So it's not the right risk we take for no reward. Wow, that's deep. And I don't know what exactly you meant with your question, if it's regarding the gliders. I basically meant overall framework. It's the way gliders are dominating, you know, one style of flying. And

Aninder: similarly, same manufacturer is doing that in the other field as well, although now GTO has come around as a worthy competitor. But what I see is that manufacturers drive a lot of direction in which the industry grows. For example, if a submarine harness was just increasing the glide ratio by some tiny bit. Why were ozone more or less the first ones to introduce it in a market where adaptability is basically done on the tiniest of the margin? So discovering something which is not for the, let's say, greater good, but only making niche happy is questionable, I would say.

Guest: I do agree and also disagree with certain things. I think it's great to have innovation. Unfortunately in this particular case it came with some safety compromise which I personally don't like and nobody liked. And unfortunately, the Federation was not swift enough to say, to basically prohibit this type of harness until certain things are approved.

I don't know, taken care of, created rules for. So basically even nobody really wanted to fly because you don't see the instrument. You have to zip the pod closed and open and the protector is smaller. But in the end, everybody is doing it now. Even in the SRS, which is sports class from last year to this year, there is a crazy amount of more people flying. using submarine-type harnesses. I personally love to fly this harness. It's a nice feeling. The performance is great. And for anybody who would want to upgrade from one category to the next and is not yet flying a submarine, actually, it would be enough to just get one of those harnesses in terms of getting a good gain in performance without

actually going a higher class. But I totally agree that there should be better protection and some of the issues are solved now in terms of especially the coming in and out of the pod is now like basically any other harness, if not even better. There is a working group from the very beginning. There is a working group of good people in it. And I'm not sure why everything took so long. But now I know that there is a decision that is basically have reduced the amount of G-force that a certified protector in the harness should allow. I'll tell you what, Paul, I was

Aninder: trying to reach a deeper meaning here. Let's compare this with our analogy with the X-Alps pilots, you know, the top-of-the-line pilots are part of an arrangement where showing one side instead of the reality is okay, and they are silently playing the part. But compare that to... the acceptability of hardness in paragliding systems. Not one person has come out and said, hey, I would like to highlight this, whereas it has been rapidly adopted by every single pilot. No, it was not so rapidly adopted. People were resisting it and people had different responses

Guest: to this and people wanted to believe that paragliding performance difference is negligible enough for them to not switch but over time they had to realize that it is too big to ignore and it's not it's not the manufacturer it's not the manufacturer's responsibility man it's the system that allowed it to create that harness to be certified that way So anybody who is talking bad about that harness should not be talking bad about a given brand, but it should be talking bad about the system that created the framework that allowed this to be legal. You know what I'm saying? So that's why I'm a little bit getting angry with some people and also in the comments like... Some people were, because I always

mentioned the submarines and stated it clearly, I don't like the way how it is now, but obviously I like the performance, but I would prefer to have more protection and I would prefer to have access directly to my instrument and all these details. But I can't deny I love the sensation and the performance. But it's not Ozone's fault that the system let them do this innovation in this form. And it's not Ozone's fault that the working group took two years To make a move. I don't know why. And now I heard that the G is reduced from 50 to 42. That means we're going to have to

have better protections. But as long as they find a protector that fulfills that test, it's not the manufacturer's fault. then the system is still not strict enough. It's pretty clear. It's not even a slightly subjective thing that test pilot goes out and pulls a collapse. You can pull it like this or like that. They are pretty good at pulling it the right way in the right test and then passing a test. No, it's a machine actually smashing the protector with weight. I love the way you clarified that, Paul, because me including was needing some more

Aninder: information on that. I think you highlighted a very important point that the frameworks in place are flawed rather than the R&D and the direction that it's taking. I think everybody should be... The submarine is not an idea from a few years back. I think this existed a long

Guest: time ago. The same way a lot of the innovation that is coming back into production is very old, but somehow failed back then. I know that the submarine was also a long project in the making, an older idea. And now look at what it did to the whole harness system.

Like now you have these one kilo submarine harnesses for hike and fly. Who is complaining about those? Who is complaining about great performance with super lightweight? There is a lot of benefits that brought. And maybe I agree that in the form that it came out, it probably should not have been It's certifiable, but it's not the manufacturer's fault. It's not the innovator's fault. They always try to use the system and make the best product according to the requirements. And it led to a series of innovation because as soon as the second manufacturer brings out their version, it's already improved. The competition is improving the original product. idea and it's getting better and

better so i'm sure we're gonna overcome this and i'm sure it's it has implications a lot of the things that designers are learning from one product that will be translated to those normal regular pot harnesses that we all used to fly wow I completely agree with all the points that you

Aninder: made over there. And they're very deep, insightful observations from you because you have seen the evolution of sport quite closely yourself. But Paul, I think this is a discussion that can keep on going with the amount of topics that are there to touch. If we have to wrap up this in some sort of a comprehensive manner, the biggest pain points that we came out with at the beginning of our talk was that there's a culture-based safety flaw. And then the hierarchy takes its own bit of time in moving around things. And generally, there is an attitude of lackadaisicalness, I would say, lazy attitude way, basically. But if you have to sum it up, you know, this along with the Julian's movement and

Aninder: everything, what is your message to people out there as friars and also people out there in power?

Oh my God. Yeah, let's just work together to make this world a better place and keep it easy because I think it seems like we tend to look the

Guest: wrong way and not necessarily care enough about the important things. Let's see where we are heading. I think this is already great that it sparked this huge conversation and got people thinking. And I think I know that there are already many great ideas and some people are way ahead of this kind of thinking, studying the problems or finding solutions. And we have to connect those people together to...

to form whatever you want to call it, that independently of institutions, influences and politics can work on the important things that we believe is the right thing to focus our attention to because We have seen, I have seen, I've been to these kind of meetings about competitions and people get lost about talking about some scoring details and what is cloud flying, what is not cloud flying and how much point for this and what do we do with the ballast that everybody is carrying too much ballast. These are some extremely heated conversations and very important topics, but maybe they are not the most important ones. There are some... improvements in the rules and

scoring this is good i totally welcome it it's just taking too long and too much bureaucracy and talking and it ends in very little change in the practical side of things what i also wanted to say is to clarify my point a little bit about going sports class is that now I know kind of both worlds and I'm just really missing and nobody's talking about this, but now I'm trying to make people aware. Right now, the only possibility for a motivated compilot to go and fly with the best pilots is to go to a World Cup or some high-level events, usually Category 1 or Continental Championships. like it used to be with the open class, right? So if you want to fly with the best of the blessed, you have to cope with the dangers

of an open class and be willing to take that risk and maybe even pay for it. But why isn't it possible to fly more simple, more fun, more manageable equipment and have the same people in the air? What is holding us back from, I'm not saying for the sport in general, but at least for a part of the events? Why cannot we have an event that has exactly the same pilot quality as the top scoring events? Flying... sports class or whatever class a lower category glider i understand everybody's point i'm seeing a lot of comments i'm part of some groups that are with a few of the

best pilots in the world and they are sharing great ideas there's a great conversation going on but one thing is fairly common team namely that they don't want to change from the ccc they are very happy with the ccc and i can understand why i also like the ccc i'm just asking why not have another possibility to have the same quality of people flying different gliders because it would immediately i think if it's done the right way it would reduce risk However, it's really difficult to set the right rules. And this is something I learned from the conversation with Luca Armand that you can set the rules you believe with the best intention are going to be keeping the gliders in the most safe limits and

designs. But unfortunately, time is showing different. It's more about the philosophy of a manufacturer and the brand, what they are willing to associate their name with. It's not about which designer is able to get the most performance out. It's rather which one is giving the best performance while setting their limit of how much risk they are willing to put their customers into in terms of top speed stability or whatever that might be. And this is where there are very differing philosophies. I'm not mentioning any name, but I think people, some gliders are generally hotter from some brands than others. Some brands generally have a higher, if not most of the brands have a higher ratio in

the same category compared to other brands. So it comes down not only skills in designing and manufacturing quality, but also quality. the philosophy of the owners and and I think this is where they should take more responsibility as themselves if it's worth associating this kind of higher risk of of that comes with certain products or they should just drop that top few percent because it's really only about a few percent of the speed range in order to keep those gliders much safer. Because it's really easy for them to say, yeah, but the pilot will decide how much he pushes. Yeah, but the pilot, if it's in a competition and now it's a race, then it's just going to go sometimes as fast as possible. We, yeah, it's

again like the responsibility to someone else is it's the most easy answer to some of these problems. Maybe we as a sport, as an industry should think more about limiting that kind of risk. What I'm extremely happy about and one of the highlights that came out of the conversation with Luca Mann was And he was mentioning it by himself. I wasn't even bringing it up yet. I was going to bring it up. It was one of my main points to ask his opinion about this. But it was him actually saying that, yeah, the best would be if it would be like in Olympics and everyone will be on

the same model. Like in several sports in the Olympics, you're going to have that one model that everybody is racing on. And this is not a solution for all the competitions, but it could be a solution, for example, given events, especially the ones with the worst safety records. Or I know this is an extremely unpopular idea, but imagine a world where like in sailing, there is the classes or windsurfing or whatever else there is. that one gear that I don't know who would decide which one is it, but that way we could make sure that this of monetary interests of the manufacturers because it's going to be very hard for anybody to say yeah but the pilot will decide how much he pushes and how

much risk he is going to take exposing himself to a collapse I will not limit the top speed of my glider because it goes this fast and it still passes the certification But if you say, no, everybody goes with the same, here is your glider, you can trim it however you want for the competition. And that's it. Then... Yeah, it's a little bit of a utopian concept. And I also have a hard time seeing this coming to realization. This would be definitely a good solution, a good cap of limiting the risk-taking by sticking to one model for certain events. That model could be decided by either... let's say the pilot union or whichever group that is hopefully the least corrupted or influenced by certain

interests. Or maybe you could choose between two models. I mean, it's hard to imagine, but we have to think about all the possible solutions. At the moment, we are a little bit like horses, you know, we are not looking left and right. We just go, go, go. We accept that this is the reality. And of course, an extreme idea at the moment, but Imagine what if it would work and what if it is a good solution to equalize the field and also to make sure that the best pilot will win, not the biggest balls. Big balls are not enough to win, but certainly are a part of the equation.

Aninder: Wow. So... I have said wow almost like three times now after your answers, I think in the past an hour or so that I've been doing this. Insightful thoughts, I would say. Some quite heavy questions for people to ponder upon. Yeah, for now, I'm already quite happy that

Guest: there's going to be this pilot union forming, hopefully with a bunch of great people. And some are already, as I explained, have basically worked out this system of categorizing events, which is important because for me, I learned this over the years and basically decided last year that I'm not going somewhere just because the event is there. I'm going somewhere because I like to fly that place. Because I think this is something people might not be thinking about enough, but the location of an event you decide to go for has a huge influence in the amount of risk that you are about to take. Like I said, if you go to a dust place, dry yellow semi desert is gonna be different conditions so that's already

telling a lot about your willingness of risk taking and risk appetite and i think this should be made more clear not only about the conditions but also the quality of the local organization the experience the logistics the medical care and other important details this is a good direction and hopefully there will be more nice ideas to come I'm hearing about talks about like a CCC, but for sport class, that would be a CSC, if I understand correctly. This can be a good idea, a good solution. I hope this can be a safe solution. Yeah. We will see. I think on that note,

Aninder: yeah, amen. Amen. Amen to a lot of things. Paul, before we close, I saw this story of yours about signing up on a link. And that was a link which has been signed up by a lot of top pilots in the world. It's a petition being started on change.org about the civil resign moment. Could you tell our listeners a bit about that? Because if anybody's wondering, where can they get some more information on this topic that has been going around?

Guest: I think the best information I found was on your podcast, the previous one with Julian. I think that explains really well. There is more to read. I don't really want to get too political after some... Consideration myself, I did end up signing the petition, but I think everybody should go out there and learn more. There is plenty of information why some people are really for this initiative and why this can be a good way to make a positive change. Because of certain things we already discussed, Julian explained it quite well. The French Federation is behind this, which is quite something as well. Everybody should decide for themselves and do their own due diligence and then go

and sign. I think I recently got news that Australian and New Zealand federations have also sent in there some sort of a written piece of

Aninder: request. But yeah, we'll be sure to bring more information on that. Well, I think it's a positive matter because as I wrote, we don't want to

Guest: wait for a double fatality. At the moment, we find it okay to lose one every other event, but I think it's also too bad. And yeah, here we are.

Aninder: Paul, I think starting the conversation is the key to eventually being at a point where you can make a choice. You started the conversation and that was the whole idea of this podcast as well, to give people information and get them talking for when it comes to making a choice on this matter. Yeah, thanks for doing this. Yeah, Paul, the feelings are mutual, and it was an absolute honor hosting you last time. The episode, which from that time has been consistently remained in top five, I think, until the last few months or so. So people loved you in the Columbia one. I think your stories with Aaron Maldonado and the Berea and everything were one of the most listened to. So...

Guest: Yeah, that kind of stuff should also be part of the event grading system. Yeah, people have to know if 20k the wrong way, they end up having lunch with the guerrilla or not. This kind of information shouldn't be Indeed, indeed. I think that's... And this, yeah, this comes to the disappearance of Vito, which we didn't talk about, but I got some heat about not mentioning when talking about... Safety records of the SRS. And it could have been also avoided with some guidance. And these are the things we have to be aware of. Amazing, Paul. So thanks for your time this

Aninder: time around. We'll be happy to bring you back when there are more developments. And until then, keep rocking, sir. You're our inspiration. Thank you. Thank you. Bye. All the best.