Sky Gods : Flying to Win : Honorin Hamard

Honorin Hamard: Legendary is a word often associated with greatness. A quality so unique that only a select few even dare to dream about. And then, out of those who end up dreaming about it, only a handful actually act on it. And finally, it is out of this elite group of dream chasers that a few come out on top and realize what they have envisioned. Drawing parallels with the mamba mentality as Kobe Bryant famously said throughout his career, rest at the end and not in the middle. And there's one guy in our sport of paragliding who's pushing the bar further every time he takes to the air. And in his own words, it's not over until it's over. To put it a bit

more simply, in paragliding terms, he flies until the very last meter above the ground. And when I say the last metre, I quite literally mean, not once, not twice, but multiple times, he makes sure to calculate all the finest details to the absolute minimum, making it count when it matters the most. Resonating with big names in other sports, such as Jordan, Deccan, Woods, to name a few, we have our very own maestro of paragliding. And he is none other than the Frenchman Honoré de Hamad. Coming from a very humble beginnings on the coast of Normandy and clocking in nearly 8000 hours by the age of early 30s and already a multiple world record holder, this pilot has worked hard for every

single ounce of glory that he has achieved so far. And what fascinates me beyond measure is that coming into top 10 is no longer even a fight for him as making the podium is a habit that he has gotten used to. Top 3 finish in every single time he has raised a paraglider in past two years is a testament to the fact that winning habit seems to come naturally to him. A true legend in the making and most importantly a very humble and nice person to fall to. So without further ado, let's dive right into this very special talk with the number one ranked pilot in the world of

paragliding where he gives us a sneak peek into his very fascinating and at the same time a very motivating world as we discuss the intricacies and behind the scenes of what made him who he is today.

Well, to begin with, Honor, super glad to have you here. Welcome to Paragliding Atlas. It's an absolute honor. Thank you so much for coming. Thank you. Me too. I was just checking your Facebook posts before this, and it seemed like finally you were having some time off racing paragliders and vacationing in Africa. Yeah, I took a paraglider, but in fact, I didn't fly because it was in the northeast of

Namibia and there is not so much hills and a lot of wildlife. So that's not super easy to fly. But I will come back one day to fly on the west coast,

Skeleton Valley, everything on the west. It looks like super nice to fly above the dunes. so that's it that's another trip it's almost

Honorin Hamard: unbelievable when Horner and Hamard the world number one says it was hard to fly like how can anything be hard to fly yeah the wildlife is the biggest problem if you land and you have some lions not sure it would be good

No, but you don't bomb out, man. You just keep up and you can actually... If you land on the next campsite, no problem. But if you bomb out

before...

Honorin Hamard: Great. So I think this was a little bit of a break before getting ready for Monarka and the upcoming competitions. Is that what you have to do? This

year we have a very condensed calendar. So it was super condensed during seven months. So from the Super Finals in December to June or July. And then we have seven months without any competition. And the next one is in March. So from August to March, we have nothing in fact. So a big break and we can train, we can do some other sports to just keep you really that you really want to fly for the next comp. And that's what will happen in March. We will all be ready and ready to fight for the Superfire. Wow, so excited to hear that. Just gives me goosebumps just by listening to it. I

Honorin Hamard: was in fact checking your FAI page and I just saw that since 2021, out of 18 competitions that you have played, you have had podium finishes in 15 of them. Is that correct that only three times you have been outside podium in the past? Yeah, I think I have 15 competitions on the podium in a row,

yeah. Wow. That's quite rare for paragliding because we can't see the thermals and it's difficult to be regular. But finally, these two last years, I managed to do it and I hope it will continue. If I don't lose this feeling and this flow, which is not so easy to achieve in paragliding. i don't always win because there is a lot of really good pilots but uh yeah i'm often in the top 10 and now these two last year in the top three I don't

Honorin Hamard: think you have a right to say that you don't win when you finish 15 times out of 18 on podium. You win all the time. What else is there?

So nice to hear that. And super inspiring to see somebody maintaining that consistency. I mean, coming out at top once or twice is one thing, but doing it again and again 15 times in a row. But that's the reason why we're here today, so that our listeners can get... to know a little bit of your secrets. How do you do it? Why do you do it? And if they have to do it, then what am I forward? But I was just curious on another thing. Can you talk about your world records? I was recently watching this YouTube interview that you shared on your Facebook page with another French

person. And it said that you have five world records and three in tandem and two in a boat with water or something. So can you please clarify? It was in French. Yeah. In my life, I tried two times to do some world records. And this year also, I tried, but it's managed on a big FIA

triangle. So I tried in 2015 in solo flights, and I made a declared goal world record. That was with NIVIUK at this time, just before to work for OZEN. And that was super interesting. That was my first big straight flight in Brazil, in Quixada. And that was a foot takeoff. It's not by towing. The towing came after in Azul or other places like that in Brazil. and then I came back to Brazil also take off by FIT in tandem and I managed to do three world record in tandem So one declared goal, one distance over three points and the straight distance, which is 403 kilometers in tandem. So until now, I'm the only one at more than 400 kilometers in tandem. But I think if... more pilots want to go, they can

do quite easily 500 now because there is some new good lines and at this time it was quite humid and we had a bit of sun train at the end and a lot of cover clouds. So I think there is still a big margin of progression for this kind of flights, big flights in Brazil. And at the end, I tried also FIA triangle in the Alps, and I managed to do it. It was 329, which was broken this year by Baptiste. The same day we were attempting, both of us, the same triangle. he flew super well so he managed to do it and I was blocked behind the mountain downwind and I took three frontals and I

said I can't catch him and I prefer to stop here now to not maybe kill myself because it was a bit dangerous so there is few key points like that sometimes you have to to say no, stop, I go back to the ground and I will try next time to beat it. And Baptiste was a bit in front of me and he managed to cross it just a bit earlier with a bit less wind. He also took a collapse just after but he managed to pass it and cross this little shitty valley with a lot of wind. and that's super interesting also to see some new young and very talented pilots come and to beat all the records and

that's super nice to fly with them and easy to understand each other in the air I like that. I like big flights and sometimes I post on Facebook the day before to be several in the year because that's when we are several that we can go faster and we can share also the flights and be very performant. Wow, wow. Thank you for giving such a detailed explanation of that world record. And I understand just a tiny bit of a difference

Honorin Hamard: between you and Baptiste results in a world record is quite heartbreaking for me just to hear that. So I can imagine how difficult it must be on you. But yeah, you know, three frontals and a lot of wind. There's a saying which comes to our mind, which says live to fly another day. So world record can wait for another day. But yeah. I was just wondering, before you came into this competition flying and started smashing it, I was watching your documentary, Flying Fish. Hiya. It's absolutely magical. I mean, first of all, super inspiring. Ozone put it out on their page and it's available to everyone. So in case the listeners are wondering, just head over to Ozone Paraglider's page and

you'll see everything about Honour and Hamad in that documentary. But it said you started flying at 14, finally, because that was the earliest you could begin. And then you started competing two years into it, at 16. How do you do that, man? Like, two years into the sport and you get competitions already? Like, what? How? How does that happen? Because of my father, he helped me a lot. And like the first year, I flew more than

200 hours and the second year was the same. And we were doing like a bit like in the cyclism, the Tour de France. So we were going all around France to do all the takeoffs, learn about all different sites and meteorological stuff on each place. So that was really interesting and I took a lot of time on the ground to play with my glider. So each day I fly on the... We were living next to the sea and we were doing mainly soaring. And each day of flying, I was doing like maybe more than 100 takeoff and landings. So that was quite fast, in fact, to learn and to be efficient in

a lot of wind because we were flying with often more than 30 kilometers per hour. And to be safe on the ground and to know where is your glider above your head, not take any frontal anymore in takeoffs. And that was helping me also for after, in the air, to avoid some collapses, intermalls, flights. But I did mainly at the beginning some comps in Flatland. So after two years, I started in Flatland, and I came progressively to the mountains. And it was super difficult for me to understand the breezes phenomenon, because I was just flying and soaring with the wind coming from the sea. And there is no breeze in every way in the mountains, in every valley. It's in different directions. so

i had a bit of time to understand that but with some good coach good pilots and in competition where they can explain to you before the task or is the win here or can you do the task that was really interesting and finally i was quite fast to to learn paragliding and go to competition so a bit just a bit more than two years No, that's amazing. But just help our listeners understand. So 200 hours in the first year, and how many hours before you

Honorin Hamard: finally started competing? I mean, 100 takeoffs and landings approximately a day does explain a lot that you did put in the hard work, that you were actually going out and making it count. But how many hours approximately before you finally started pushing the speedball? It looks like it was around 600 hours. Wow, man. $600, two years. You deserve a contest, man. Definitely. That's because I flew a lot that it

was quite fast. And I said, as soon as I started the competition, I said to my father, maybe my dream is to be world champion. And he said, OK, come on, world champion. There is a lot of pilots, very good pilots. You will maybe not manage to do it one day, but I hope for you, but it will be super difficult. And so I knew that it was a sport where I can compete. i can do something and i i have a good feeling i enjoy every flight so i will try and uh i did it so it was the the good decision to to keep this sports because also i at the beginning i was playing handball i was playing badminton

with quite a good level and i said maybe i will continue in this kind of sports but no paragliding is uh is the best one i found I agree with you and

Honorin Hamard: the art of flight does not compare to anything else. It's like, yeah, come on, being as a human, you get to fly with the birds. Like, yeah, that is the best life, you know. Wow. So glad to hear your parents were so supportive and especially your father. Yeah. Yeah, I was lucky to be

with my father because he was a self-taught in 1987. So at the beginning of paragliding. And so he tried to teach me a bit like that, the paragliding. So my first flight was in soaring. But I just did a straight distance until the beach. And the second flight, I did a bit of soaring. So just my father teach me how to do. And unfortunately, I did a spin, a spin and completely go back to the hill. And yeah, it was a bit hard crash, but I had nothing, nothing broken. So yeah. after that my father said okay maybe i will not teach you just myself because i'm not paragliding instructor and you will go in a

school so i did one week in a school just to teach me how to fly and not to fly with old gliders because at this time you had some old gliders and a technique with release one brake after you inflated the gliders and i learned how to do a crossing brakes technique like that you can you can keep your two brakes in your hands which is really better, especially when you have a lot of wind and maybe you will have to take off as soon as you inflate the glider. So a few little steps that I missed at the beginning, really at the beginning, and just after I did a lot of practice on the

ground and in the air, a lot of takeoffs and landings. That's the main thing, play with your gliders to be efficient and to progress quickly. There is too much pilots which are flying too early and in difficult conditions without the good skills how to land safely everywhere and to land and take off safely. So that's the main thing, to learn and to play with your glider on the ground. But I understand not every sites are super easy to do that, but you can try to find some fields with a bit of read and try to practice more on the ground. Now, very true, Honor. I think

Honorin Hamard: this reminds me of the saying which says, where there is a will, there is a way. So if you really want to make it happen, you will find a place and the way to do it. I just want to talk about this practice that you said, because I saw your CV which said that within 10 years of starting to compete, you became a world champion. But anyways, what I'm very curious is, What did hard work look like? Like how, I mean, okay, when the first couple of years you were just doing a lot of ground handling and a lot of takeoffs and landings. But eventually when you started

competing, what was your hard work or what was practice? Like what did you do to get better that eventually made you the number one? Yeah, so

the... The best part was to fly a lot. In fact, you have just to fly a lot. And my father registered me in some weeks with clubs. And we were going into the mountains and we flew a lot. We were like 10 pilots from our region in Normandy, in northwestern France. And we were going on the mountains, the Alps. because we knew that I had to learn how you can fly in the mountains, in the thermals, everything. and that was really interesting to to fly in different places and like i said i flew all around france with my father and sometimes i just did 10 kilometers but

that was super nice flight and my father did the retrieve and i did another 10 kilometers the same day and i did few times that and so that's why Everything is coming from my father. He had a lot of time for me and Monet because paragliding is quite expensive. And I was able to change my glider when he thought I had finished with the E&A, I have enough skills to go on the E&B. And I did a lot of SIV to understand what happened after a collapse,

what to do, what I have to do as a pilot, not do rescue or do rescue when it needed. So SIV course, I did like three or four SIV course, the two or three first years. That was quite important. on top of fly a lot in every conditions almost every days in fact so yeah that's why it was quite fast to learn and after that I also did quite a lot of competition but at the minimum level of French circuit

And that was interesting also. I did some toe competition. I did some competition when you take off by feet in mountains, in flatland, in some place where there is both a bit of flatland, a bit of mountains. So that was interesting. really various places to understand everything about paragliding, in fact. And I was never, and I'm still never, bored about paragliding. So that's the main thing, to not do a burnout and don't want to fly anymore. Or maybe you have a really big accident and you are a bit scared to practice again. So I had some accidents, but nothing to stop me really. Every time I understand which mistake I made and how I can solve it. So finally, that's like in other sports, you have to really

understand your sport and yourself to be performant. Now it makes sense, man. I see the smile that comes on your face when we're having this

Honorin Hamard: talk. So burnout for a world champion should not be an option, I think, and I hope it never comes. But I just want to quickly, before we proceed, can you please talk about your glider progression? That how many hours you spent on E and A and how many on E and B and C and D? I want to put this out because as you said, a lot of people today, I see them myself, some of my friends, and even I feel tempted to progress faster because we see everybody around us, you know, going to high B, going to two liner C, just flying fancier wings. So, so how many hours did you spend on each and

every category and how did it, if you can just tell us about your glider progression, just for, for the curiosity. Yeah. So, um, I flew first

with ENA, that was an advanced Epsilon something, maybe Epsilon 5 if I remember well.

Epsilon is a B, man. Or maybe I was straight on this B. Because that was for sure an Epsilon 506. And I practiced a lot with it. And maybe between 250 and 300 hours, my father...

took an Airways ENB a bit like plus so that was a bit faster a bit more aspect ratio and I did also like two or three hundred hours and each time at the end it was super easy to take off with it i had no problem in the air it was also good i did a siv with each glider and when you have the skills at the end with this glider you you always want a bit more I kept this Epsilon and this Airways like almost two years. And after these two gliders, I jumped for the competitions straight on the... It was a Gradient, AVAX XC this time. and my father was a bit scared about that so he asked me to to

practice a lot of on the sea coast and that's what i did and i did some little videos also to yeah to to to all the pilots around the world because at this time there is not a lot of video internet and i was playing on the ground with this this glider i was doing a stabilo touch touch and i was take off reversed and then stayed reversed in the air so i think i had quite good skills just before to jump into competition with the glider i have and i made around 100 hours under these gliders before to go to competition and yeah that that was i think these steps were in the nice uh

position to start the the competition with good skills i didn't jump too much and i was not so fast uh yeah to to be to be uh to try well i had no how do you say sorry

For me, it was safe. Not too much for my father, because maybe he wants that I take one year more to go into competition with a safer glider. But I think it was OK. It was just after when I jumped from this AVAX XC to one U4 that maybe it was a bit too early. And I did a rescue also with this glider after frontal. because it was really another level

after collapses to recover it's not a glider that you can recover by itself you have to do a lot of actions for you the pilot and it's yeah it's it was a lot a big aspect ratio you can take some frontals in the center and the tips are coming in front and uh yeah so i did a rescue with this u4 it was my second no it was between my second and my third year of competition and that was the biggest step and maybe maybe my big mistakes in paragliding to jump too early in such a kind of glider let's see it it was in the same time i won the My first year, I won the minimum serial class in France. And

so I did half of the second year with this... with this glider and after I said to my father I need more because if I want to beat the others I need to have the same glider than them and next year I will go in the top French competition so maybe I can jump on it and yeah so just after two years I jumped on the U4 yeah a bit too early Wow. Thank you for your honesty, Honor. We all make mistakes. And yeah, being too early is not something

Honorin Hamard: that should be recommended, especially in a sport like ours. But do you have any tip for when do you know from inside that, okay, now I am 100% sure to jump or to move on to the next wing? And when do you know that now... It might be too soon. Like, what is it for you that tells you this, that now I'm good to operate or now I'm not yet good to operate? When you are... super confident in your in your glider that you know her really well

there is no surprises even in collapses and you practiced a lot you did more than 200 hours

for sure if it's 200 hours in one year maybe you can do a second year if it's 200 hours in several years okay maybe you can jump on another glider because otherwise you will never have any glider it depends quite a lot how many hours you fly per year and what are your goals because if it's to do competition okay you can start to fly a lot each year to be to have good skills and to try to jump quite fast on other better gliders and if it's just for cross country you maybe just try to relax and take more time like two years on the same glider Especially if you don't fly a lot, you will

have a bit more time to progress and don't jump too fast on the ENC or these. And it's not because you have a better glider that you will do better flights. There is a lot of ENB, ENC gliders which are more than enough to do big flights. And you can already do, even with ENA, more than 200 kilometers in the Alps. I prefer personally to orientate my students straight on E and B gliders because especially in mountains where there is breeze in the valley you will be more comfortable with more speed and to reach some landings which are quite fast sometimes So that's only for that that I prefer straight bees, some easy bees like the buzz.

But this kind of glider, you can keep it 2, 3, 4 years before to change it. And if really you fly a lot, okay, you can try to jump on the sea after one and a half or two years. It really depends on each pilot for sure. 100%. I think airtime, as you said in the beginning of the talk, that airtime is

Honorin Hamard: the key. And if you're getting enough airtime and if it does not scare you, then it should be right. But I quickly want to touch upon this topic. This question has troubled me myself because I am on a high B right now. And ever since ozone came with photon, which is basically a game changer in the C category. So I went from A glider because I learned to be willing in India, in the Himalayas. And over there, there's a lot of turbulence and you have to be safe and keep it easy. So I started flying an A glider. I flew it for 100 hours, went on a high B wing. And I've been flying a high B

wing for a couple of hundred hours now. I feel, like, I feel completely confident on my wing. It's not a problem. The stalls don't scare me. The collapses are okay to handle. Is it okay to move to a two- liner C right now or should a person still go to a three-liner C? Like, what is the difference in this brand new class that is introduced? But the photon, the aspect ratio is bigger. And so you will have more chances of cravat,

of a bit streaming takeoffs. And you will have to have more action in the passive flights. So after a collapse, you will have to do some good and more accurate actions to recover the flights. and yeah jump to the ENB to a photon maybe for some pilots it's a too big step and that's why we will also have the delta 4 which delta 5 which can be more accessible ENC and which can be also in two liners we will see if we have the same passive behavior than the Delta IV previously in three liners for sure we will jump on this two liners in Delta V and that can be also something to think

we can have some super easy two liners in the future and not always jump on three liners ENC before to go to two liners But yeah, actually in our range for ozone, maybe in other brands it's different, but the difference between the ENB and the ENC is a bit too big. Except if you are flying more than 200 hours each year with your ENB, after that you start to have good skills and it can't be too dangerous to jump on the photon.

Honorin Hamard: Now, thank you for clarification. My curiosity stemmed from the point that everybody in the sports class racing is flying two-liner ENCs. So when you put in your money in a three-liner, like you're not going to win in a three-liner, you know, that's a given that you can't, but you probably have a lot to learn as well. So I leave that decision to the individual pilots. The thing to know is that for sure it's more

difficult, but EN A, B, C, It's still some gliders which don't require a lot of pilot action after collapses. It's a bit more plug and play. As soon as you start to touch these, wow, you can have a lot of various accidents in the air and you have to know how to react about that. And the only things to know for the Photon is that some collapses one on maybe 1000 can stick the like if you have a frontal the glider can be stick can be stuck under the the lower surface and you have to pull the brakes quite hard to release it and you can have some some little stall after the

frontal also so if so it's better to know how to do a stall because if you have some little deep stall or even a stall after a frontal because you put too much brakes or something like that it's better to do how to know a stall and just go back exit by your stall that's easier if you don't know how to do some stalls maybe it's better to wait an easier ENC glider Understood. It's always safer for the pilot to know how to do a stall when you take some gliders like that, especially in E&D, but E&C also, it can start to require some actions. For the Photon, it's one on, I don't know

how many collapses that you can have this reaction, but it can happen. So it's better to be prepared. What reaction did you say? The reaction

Honorin Hamard: where the leading edge is stuck? Yeah, it's not reopening by itself. You have it stuck under a little ball of shit, in fact. So you keep the span, or

it's doing a bit like a ball. So you have to do a break action. And maybe it's reopening, but it's keeping sometimes the ears, and it can dip stall or even stall. So you can have both reactions. And it depends on your brake reaction. It depends on the trimming of the glider. If the glider is quite old, quite far from our standard, sometimes it can favorize this kind of behavior. I see. Well, thank you for clarifying

Honorin Hamard: because I missed out touching on the topic of stalls and practicing them. When you mentioned that you had done two, three or four SIVs, I'm just curious, you know, once you start flying a lot, And once you start learning about your glider a lot, you can't pay for SIVs every time. You know, it does not make financial sense that every time you go that you give money to somebody and then do the SIV. So a lot of time pilots start doing stalls on their own to learn the skills by themselves. What kind of stalls is the best way to learn your glider and its behavior? Like for me,

for example, I just go out and practice full stalls because I think that if I can just hit the reset button every time, then I feel that I am getting outside trouble a lot. But is there any kind of self- practiced SIV maneuvers that you recommend that pilots can start doing after they're fairly comfortable and they have enough information? First, it's not bad to train with an ENA or ENB. It's easier for the stall. and it will be

exactly the same technique for the gliders with more performance

you will just have some little parameters to adjust but it's mainly the same so I think it's better to start with some super easy gliders And even competitors, they can take ENB gliders if they want to go to SIV. First, to not fuck their glider. And it's easier and they will understand better how it is first and practice a lot. After, try the full stall above the ground. It can be dangerous. So you have to have enough skill to not put you in difficulties above the ground. to have one or two rescue if you do that and to have a place with some field maybe to not land on the city or

power lines everything so you have to be quite careful where is your box to start this kind of stuff above the ground the best is to go like above the lake like in Annecy a lot of pilots are going without any instructors above Annecy because there is the lake so you fall on the lake and You have to have a... You like this, yeah? But... It's... It's not so bad. And it's good to surf. And after, some techniques for stall, there is not... There is mainly one. It's to... It's to fully brake and then find the way when you are flying backwards and straight go in this position. Not a...

keep your hands on the bottom and that glider is moving a lot is moving a lot and you lose too much altitude so as soon as you start to be confident and to know where is this position for me and you find it super easily for me that's the The good point where you can go to travel above the ground because you don't lose a lot of altitude and normally if you almost know how to do it, it can't happen few too much bad things. After with more powerful gliders like ENCs or ENDs, what you can have is a big shoot. and to not stop it so that's why you have to train a bit above the water before

just to know that it can be really powerful and one thing to not absolutely not try also is to put your hands up when you are on the when you just made the the full stall so if you are here and you make the stall the pilot is here and you release you will have a huge shoot even with ena gliders and you can fall on your into your glider so yeah that's a few things that you have to know to be sure to not uh to not

Honorin Hamard: Now, I think the point that you mentioned about stall point. So just identifying where the stall point is and then coming back is more than enough to give you practice. And with different gliders categories, you have less and less as soon as you go up on the categories, less and less

break range. So this point is most and most accurate and it's better just to train above the water before to go above the ground and to note this point quite clearly and after that's becoming quite common. As a test pilot, sometimes I wonder, how many full stalls do you do in a year, Rand?

Honorin Hamard: Can you ever count them? Yeah, but we are not doing a lot of stalls, because finally it's quite an easy maneuver, and I can make almost all

the gliders ENA. What do you mean? If you go slowly to release, then you have no shoot. If you have a good technique, you have a good result. so it's more the the stall is more coming from the technique than really the the glider itself okay some have a at the start they have a big world back so it's quite impressive but in fact it's nothing you just keep the stall and then when you recover there is just really some gliders which are have a huge shoot even when you are on the good position so yeah it's not uh it's not a big deal and it's it's quite easy and we are not doing it a lot but

we are doing a lot it's uh the frontals and the asymmetrics that's the two main points we are working on because the the we are failing a lot of gliders like that prototypes before to go to the certification when we are trying to do some notes in the glider to to develop it that's because of the these frontals and this asymmetrics the asymmetrics they are too aggressive in pitch in yaw or in rotation and

the the frontals they can as i said they can be stuck they can swim too much and they do a lot of ball of shit and they can deep stall straight after the frontal what we don't want but really often if it's 1 on 1000 we don't care but if it's like 9 on 10 wow it's too much we can't accept that for sure I

Honorin Hamard: agree. And thank you so much for putting in the hard work to make the sport safer for all of us. It means a lot to everyone who shares the same passion for flying. While we are talking about stalls and all of these things, Onur, Can we quickly talk about rescues? Do you have a favorite rescue? Which kind of reserve do you recommend for competition pilots who are flying massive harnesses, two compartments? And if you can just throw some light on that. So what I have is two rescues for sure because I think it's safer to have two because you can pull left or right if you have one

end which is blocked into one line or something. We really we never know how you fucked your left arm and you control the rescue you still have the right side and because also you can throw your rescue into the gliders by mistake and you have you have the other one and after I use two squares because personally I think it's better than the one shape and after it depends of some brands and some you have to check the values of the brand and to buy but yeah I use two square shapes and I don't have enough place to use like Rogalo or some rescue like that but I think it's quite efficient

ones also But for competition harnesses, it's difficult to put into the container. And for me, if I pull the rescue, I will be super close to the ground normally. And I want something which is opening super fast. And the one I found the fastest are the squares. So that's why I take them. So

Honorin Hamard: you mean squares have a better opening time than round one? Majority of this time, that's what I think here. Okay. And the pendulum stability is an added advantage as well, I guess. the pendulum stability that you don't move so much yeah yeah that's also quite interesting to to be

stable and to not do any mirror action and you have you have for sure to neutralize your glider if you have time and that's that's also a quite difficult part because uh In the manuals, you say to pull the bees and everything will be right. But in fact, often it's too hard to pull all the bees. So you take one break and you take it, take it, take it, take it. And as soon as you can take the gliders, you do a big ball and it's okay. But yeah, that's not a super easy part to neutralize the glider when it's not a ball of shit already. You know, this happened to me once. I was flying in

Honorin Hamard: the Himalayas and a cascade of events and go into auto rotation, double twisted. And I deployed, I was flying a round rescue. Man, I tried with every single ounce of energy that I had to pull in my glider. I could not. I could not. I just gave up and eventually came down in down planing. And ever since that, I was like, okay, from now onwards, I have to have detachable carabiners because that is the solution. Sometimes it's

almost impossible to be symmetric. So what I used to do is take just one break and pull it and normally it comes. Otherwise, I want some B or C lines if you have C lines to neutralize. But for sure, not the both sides because it's almost impossible. Yeah. And I mean, anyways, you're

Honorin Hamard: shitting your pants when you've deployed a reserve. So there's a lot going on in the body and the mind when that is happening. But do you want to quickly tell us how many rescue deployments have you had? Just out of curiosity. So in cross country, when I started competition at high

level of France, I did one time with the U4 because the hill was like that, I was flying here and then I was jumping on the other hill behind but I didn't knew that I was downwind on this side, on the lee side. and it was like a washing machine so I had to pull the rescue because after four or five francs I said oh okay rescue and I felt in a superb landing field with just a lot of mud a bit of mud and next to a picnic table so that That was perfect. So hopefully everything was great. And I would rescue two or three times as a test pilot. yeah sometimes we are testing some

prototypes which are quite dangerous and or you are doing some maneuvers and it was too fast and the gliders are completely stuck into the the lines so one time was above the water and one time above the ground and um yeah above the ground it's a bit uh harder when you come back to the front but uh but it's okay finally and i threw uh as a test pilot i threw the two rescues each time because i have to to be slower and uh yeah and to not eat to to add the ground No, that's good to hear, because obviously two is better than one. Do you get scared when throwing the rescue, or you're

Honorin Hamard: like, okay, I know what's happening, you know, and I'll just throw it? No, you are scared because you don't really know each time if it will

open, and that's why you have two, but I know that I pack them well, I know that there is nothing will block, so I just have normally to not throw the rescue into the glider, and it should happen well, but for sure that's there is a lot of stress and you are scared so yeah it's it's not a common action no i i agree but uh considering uh you're one of the best in the world you know it's uh but thank you for your honesty everybody's a human so i also have something more to add with the siv course one of the maneuvers you have to really uh practice a lot is the 360 because that's

There is a lot of accidents even in the SIV courses with the 360. A lot of pilots don't know how to exit so the best for me is to practice on not on the in the air but on the ground on the like or do you say a portic to know to really know how to put your weight shift and which which handle to to break a lot because sometimes you have a lot of pressure to exit and you have to do it sometimes and it's too often that i see some accident where the pilot is you want to exit on the left okay you pull the left hand but your weight shift is on the right so it's it's zero you have to do also the

weight shift on the side you pull to exit That's just when you are engaged. If you do that and you put all your weight on this side, sometimes you will exit too fast. But the accident I saw, it's when they are engaged, engaged, engaged, and the instructor said, exit, exit, exit, pull this brake. But they are putting their weight shift on the other side, so it can't work. And that's something you have to really... really try really repeat and uh to to avoid a lot of accidents and that will help you also to know where you can go in the air with the the branch and there is also a lot of It's tough to understand on the 360 how many power to manage to exit without any resource. So to not do a huge well, to

do a good symmetric exit.

It's really interesting this process on 360s because that's what you will have in flights. If you take a bad asymmetric you go in auto rotation but it's a 360 so you just have to pull the brakes to exit and to put your weight shift. It's super easy things but there is too much accidents with that. Thank you for bringing that very important point out. And I would just like to add, I've experienced this myself, that when I used to

Honorin Hamard: practice a lot of spiral dives in 360s, but the problem was that I was just practicing them on one side because the right side was my comfortable side. The thing that happened is, man, my glider got stretched on one side and eventually it could not fly the trip. Like, my trip went completely off. So, it's very important to practice spirals and 360 on both sides, not just one side. Just to let them listen. It's better if you

go in an SIV course. If you have the choice with not new gliders, but with some old gliders, because, yeah, the spirals,

it's putting a lot of into the internal structures and the fabric, the lines, everything is deforming and after for sure it will fly less good than before. And especially if you through the rescue and you go into the water, the fabric will reduce, so will stretch and all the plastic also, it will be a completely different glider after that. So that's better to use quite old gliders to do SAV course, if you have the choice. So don't

Honorin Hamard: sell your old glider, keep it for the SLU, that is the key takeaway from it. And you have to be sure that the lines are still good, because if you do

big 360s, you don't want to have all your online sets gone. Yeah, that is again an important thing. There's only so much G-forces that a glider

Honorin Hamard: can handle before it gives away. So nice to hear that wisdom coming from you. Let's talk a little bit about competing, finally, like your forte. Is there, like, how do you mentally prepare yourself for the game, you know? Like... I mean, of course, I ask this to my guests a lot, that visualization is very individualistic and stuff like that. But let's say when you started competing seriously and you started winning or coming on the world stage, what's your visualization strategy? How do you start thinking about a competition? The competition first is day by

day and you have a task. And the task, you have to know it on your fingers. You even have to not watch your instruments to know what is the race. and that's the best point and there is too much pilots which are concentrate on their instrument and they are not watching the race and if you know the task that you will do and you don't have to watch a lot just a few moments your instruments you will have a lot of free time to check the other pilots, the birds and you will do less mistakes into your skyways because you know that it's here, ok so I have several options, you can study the options it's a lot of free

time and it's super important to visualize the race before that you go and I saw too much pilots that they are checking their instruments The 300 last meters before the weapons, they are on their instruments. No, me, I'm just looking backwards. Where are the other pilots? Do they raise another thermal that I can catch on the way back? Some little things like that, and that's quite important. the other part is also to to be to have a lot of water to be hydrated because you lose a lot of energy and ways of thinking by losing water and i drink like every five minutes one little uh some little drops and and that's really nice and you really see the difference at the end of the race with someone who took water and

with other pilots they are doing much more mistakes than the others it's not always but it's it's often I agree. I just want to come in there

Honorin Hamard: because I come from a professional sports background in hockey. And over there, we had a lot of emphasis on refueling while competing. I just want to quickly ask you, we use a lot of brain energy. We don't use a lot of body energy when we fly, you know, because we're just sitting in the harness. Brain works on sugar because sugar helps brain think a lot, like, you know, get its calories. During our professional sport time, they gave Coca-Cola or something like that, like some kind of soft drink in the last few minutes of the performance to give us a sugar boost. Do you think something like that, like energy, because let's say if the race is only an hour long, you know the goal is going to be completed in one hour.

Do you think energy drinks or something in high sugar or having a chocolate bar or something could be a valuable food source in competing during high intensity? Yeah, because finally at high level, we use a lot of body energy, in fact. With our legs, everything, and we are sweating a

lot, a lot. I can lose, like in Brazil, five liters of water per flight. So you need a lot of salt. So yeah, for sure, I think you need something in the water if you don't want to lose too much energy. And especially after, also to rehydrate a lot the body. I can drink, as soon as I am, I can drink sometimes almost two liters. and then along the night you reiterate the body to be sure that you will be okay the day after and at our level the biggest competition it's two weeks so it's super long and you can finish completely tired after one week and the second week you will have a lot of

bad result because You are not well hydrated. Also, the best is to not drink a lot of alcohol, as less as possible. Of course. Even sometimes if it's difficult, for the hydration, it's really, really bad, in fact. 100%. You know, let's just talk about this, man. Beer is such an

Honorin Hamard: overrated beverage in paragliding and everybody just celebrates beer after landing. Put this out for the listeners. How many top 10 pilots drink or how many top 10 pilots don't drink? Because this needs to be told out that there is life without alcohol as well in paragliding, which can be enjoyed. So if you can just throw some light on people who are sober and still making it count in our sport. Yes, there is quite a lot, in fact,

which are drinking some beers after the landing. So sometimes one beer, it's not so bad, but you have to drink a lot of water after. And the bad thing is sometimes there is some rainy days and there is some parties and that's where quite a lot of pilots are drinking a bit too much. And that's not helping them for the rest of the camp. for sure when i'm in competition i don't drink a lot maybe for the party at the end yeah sure yeah why not because you win you have to drink that but during during the races i try to really not drink a lot and yeah for sure sometimes a glass of

red wine or something like that or one beer but i i try to drink a lot a lot of water and that's That's maybe also one thing why I'm really concentrated and focused on each race each day and my body is at 100% and I know that it will not come from my body normally. It can just come from my little mistakes and the important things mentally it's also to not think it's coming from your glider. I know my glider is well trimmed, I know that in average it has the same spin than the others, so I will never blame my glider or my harness, yeah, my equipment. It's always coming from me and that's quite important to know that in paragliding. Because there

is too much pilots which are saying my glider is fucked, okay but I take a lot of hours to set my glider. So I check the plastics, I cut them, I retight a bit the glider, I trim it before every comp. so normally your equipment is okay so that's just coming from you and you can see all the mistakes you are doing during a race you can analyze them and then you you you are better and better learn from you your mistakes

Honorin Hamard: Just talking about the wings, you're flying Enzo, right? Yeah. Because that is the most common. Yeah. You know, there are a lot of brands that come out with a lot of interesting technologies. I mean, Gin came out with a main leading edge, which says that there's a delayed separation. A few years ago, there was Rust by Swing, which said that the collapses are less. And Neveu came out with 1x, I think. So when we talk about all of this new technologies at CCC level, Is it essentially just marketing, or do these new technologies actually make a difference? The problem is

that it's super difficult to know if there is an impact on the performance or not. And it can have an impact for one glider and not for another glider, in terms of profile. So... What do you mean? I didn't understand. If you take the Rust, for example. it can work on their glider and it cannot work on another glider that we will try to develop. And it will work on a kind of profile and not on another profile. So yeah, because of that, it starts to be quite difficult to say, yeah, it has always an impact and it's really better. No, it's better for some kind of

glider, some kind of profile and some kind of flight you want to make if it's more cross country. So it's difficult to say, yeah, it's working or it's not working. For sure, it's good to have new technology and maybe it can be better for the future and maybe the other brands will use it if it's really working and if it's more gray maybe it will work like the the shape of jean the world shape it can work on their glider and that's what they put on it but like for us we tried and it was not working on ours so we didn't put it yet maybe we will find some good profiles and it will work and it

will add value so there is a bit of marketing and there is a bit also of true in the performance it can work on certain profiles and i'm sure if they put it that it's working on their profile and that's why they put it So yeah, it's a bit more a great part in the high level when we are searching a lot of new components, new fabric, new geometry, everything to try to improve our sport. But it's quite difficult and it's not always the solution will work for everybody, everyone. No, thank you for answering it so honestly, Oner. Because when I go out in the market to

Honorin Hamard: choose a new glider, all of these things just confuse me. And I'm like, OK, I cannot test five different gliders before I choose one. But it seems like that is the only option because everyone's web page looks so exciting. And everybody's saying our glider is the best. So you don't really know where to put your trust on. But obviously, I don't know. For sure, you release something, you have to say, yeah, that's the best one

that you can find. And maybe that's true for this glider, but after, for the other gliders, maybe they don't have the same stuff, but they have the same performance.

You have to try it to see by yourself if it's better than your previous glider and see if you want to take it or not. It's better to try it, I think, to be sure. Got it. Thank you for your honesty once again, Oner. Massive, massive help. You know, while we're talking about technology, let's

Honorin Hamard: dive a little bit into what kind of technologies does French team use, man? Why are you guys the absolute best in the world years and years in a row? Come on, give us the secrets. What softwares do you use? What instruments do you use? How do you analyze your tracks? There's a whole list of questions that I've written down. The whole world wants to know the answers. I think...

The best thing we have is that we have a good team and we are doing a lot of flights and a lot of glide performance flights comparison between gliders with the old one and the new ones. We are repeating the same with switching the pilots. We have the same harness, the same weight, same flying chute. so we try to really really focus on comparison and to be sure of the new products we will release and like that we can try different things into the gliders and the prototypes and really see which one will give an advantage and i'm sorry if you misunderstood me i was like what is the secret behind technology used by french team ah of course yeah french team uh If you can tell us. We have the Alps, in fact. So

we can train a lot. And we have also a lot of good coaches. And we can be a huge team. It's friendly. Everybody wants to beat the other. But it's staying friendly. And we can go up. And we are never going down. It's always, we are learning always. And there is young pilots, there is old pilots. We are sharing everything. And that's, I think that's our secret. In fact, to be all together and to have a big training place like the Alps, that's just amazing. And that's why all the French are good pilots. Because we can see in Europe, all the countries which have the big density, a lot of pilots are touching the Alps. otherwise in other countries they just have yeah five six pilots good pilots but here like

yeah in france or switzerland everywhere they have a lot of good pilots because they can train in the alps and on top of that for the french we have also the the the school in pyrenees and you can yeah before 18 you have a lot of training when you are doing your studies so that's just perfect to have a young good pilots for our activity and sometimes i find me still young but when i see them they don't have 20 years old and they are still they are already in competition and almost beating me i said wow It's coming. Wow. So exciting to hear that, man. Like Tim Leonetti, I think

Honorin Hamard: he's a guy who's smashing quite a lot of records and a few other young Frenchies. But, you know, just talking about your training in the Alps, can you share with our listeners, how does an average training day of a French paragliding team look like? Like what are you guys up to when you say that let's go out and train? Yeah, but because we don't want to have a lot of frustration for pilots, it's often, it's a meeting with a lot of

pilots and we are trying to do the best X-ray flights, the biggest X-ray flights of the day, in fact. So we are on the site, which we think it's the best for the day, and we are trying to do the best distance as we can. And often we have the retrieve, so we don't care if we land, if we bomb out. and that's great to be to be fast because we are pushing together and that's more for the sometimes for the bad days where the cross country is not really important because it's not you will not do 200 or 300 kilometer flight you can focus more on few parts of the flight like the group

control for example or the attack if someone is a bit following too much the group each time and you wanted to go in front and to be alone to take some decisions and to see how he reacts and that's quite important to do and that's more on messy days that you can do that and it's more individual not all the pilots are needed the same thing and i think it's quite important to be individual but that's more the yeah the coach will decide if it's a individual training and even if it's a group training that we have the same rallies we have the exactly the same he will tell to

everyone what he can do during this race which points you have to to develop and that's yeah that's a nice way to to do to to do the race and the

Honorin Hamard: the the training yes you know i i just want to quickly ask about this uh group uh training or in in group group uh group as a race day because i have seen in cycling there are a lot of teams which work together uh in in bike races for example even tour de france you know and There are few riders whose only aim is to go out and attack and get the others to follow them. The big riders, the prized rider does not do that. He is often protected behind these and he only attacks at the last leg. so do you do you guys have such kind of tactics as well where you have pilots who only go out and who

are only supposed to look for thermals or who are only supposed to look for good spots and good lines and let's say the big pilots the big names who who are really wanting to win they hold back and only push at the last minute like how does three team strategy work in in team racing we don't have really that because we have some leading points And the leading points, if you are in front, you have more points than the others. So the

goal, in fact, for every pilot is to be in front. And during training, the guys who are less good at that and they follow too much, they miss some points because they don't have enough leading points. So we are teaching them how to... how to attack in the group when attack the group if it's not possible because you are always below and behind to teach them also to not attack at this moment because otherwise they will lose a lot of time after and they will be like 100 on goal

so yeah that's little tactics like that and like the best if you don't know how to attack it's maybe just to do cross country by yourself and finally don't fly with the the training group just go alone on another site and fly yourself take your own decision on the task you made this day and that try to trying to and to be fast on this little circuit you made this day to try to attack and take your own decision and try to not do any mistake. That's for more the attack part. And if you like me, sometimes I don't have enough control on the group. I attack too much. And I have,

when these training days, I just have to stay in the group and attack at the end. That's my goal. And to try to be more in the group, to see how they attack, and to take the best attack at the end when I have an opportunity. But now a lot of pilots are super strong in every part. So you have to just focus on small details to make the balance in your own way.

Honorin Hamard: You know, just, I mean, my mind is so full of questions, man, because like, I haven't played any World Cup, but I know I will one day. But I'm just curious. I mean, okay, there's one thing that you said that you should know your map, you should know everything without looking at your instruments, you should know what the terrain is and everything. Talking about the small details that you notice about other pilots, what are these nitty-gritties that you have to catch? I mean, of course, you can see if he's higher or lower, but if there's something that you can throw, how to read the flying of your competitors? How do you read them? The best first is to have a good Vario GPS. because I use one on my helmet

and I know exactly the silt rate I have if it's positive or negative so it's the same that watching your instruments I don't have to watch I know just by the sound where I am so I can just watch around me the other pilots and after what are what is the the essential parts um it's a difficult question I mean, if you're letting out some secrets, then it's okay. You can save it and let people find them. But just out of curiosity, how do you

Honorin Hamard: breed other pilots? For example, you and Maxime, you guys are always together and always racing each other. When you start the competition,

for example, the best is to not attack at the beginning because first, you don't have a lot of leading at the beginning. They will come after. and you have to be you want to be in the good position after the first thermal so the start is go everybody is at different stages and you want to be one of the highest in the first terminal so you have to really focus on your lines to not be the one who will be on the bottom of the group this guy girl at the beginning otherwise you will be fucked for all the flight and it will be difficult you will have to have a lot of good skills to come

back in the group and that's more difficult so that's this first part is really important so just focus on the lines because 10 meters even 5 meters can do the difference if you see they are climbing up you go behind them and it's really really important i don't know still how it works The lights are so frustrating. I don't believe this, man. You are winning 15 out of your last 18. You definitely know how they work. You just don't

Honorin Hamard: want to tell the world. But yeah, that's one thing to focus is that. And then you can also try in the air a lot of techniques. Like when you

thermal, you can try to not put a lot of exterior brake. you can also try to pull a bit your bees on the exterior or on the interior and in some thermals there is some little variations and sometimes it's more efficient this technique or this technique it's it depends of the days and it can depend also of each thermal so if you see someone climbing better than you maybe use a different technique just copy it and you will see it will be better in the thermal So at our level, it's just one small detail like that.

What can I say otherwise? Yeah, the really important is to try to be high before the last glide. So you have to anticipate a lot because it can be at 25 kilometers from the goal.

you have to really place your attack when you think it's possible to reach the goal almost without catching any thermal or to try like a poker stuff that you say okay I need a thermal to go into the goal and I know that I will not stop if I don't find the thermal like three meters per second if you want to be to be back in a good position and to be in front of them so it's yeah it's sometimes you have to to be a bit lucky but it's because it's a good time of the day if it's three o'clock it's okay to attack low it's five o'clock it's not okay because you have maybe uh not yeah the chance

to to find a good term also at more than two meters is less good than at three o'clock so yeah that's a lot of little things like that that you have to think to to be regular in competition Well, thank you for giving us a tiny sneak peek into the secrets over there. You know, I'm going to

Honorin Hamard: come back into the last glide because the 40-kilometer tailwind landing that you had with Maxime was super interesting. We're going to talk about that at the end of the talk, which we're nearing. But I quickly wanted to talk about... psychologist in a french team and i i saw you talking about that in i think in flying fish or one of the youtube videos where you were like psychologists helped you a lot and i also saw a video of your coach giving you a pep talk before the task beginning which was a little bit similar to how the coaches talk up their athletes in team sports before or during the halftime so What, like that is, I mean, not a lot of nations have that team or the coach or a system like that. But what

kind of information comes out of your coach to the athletes before you guys go in? And what is that all about? If you can just share a little bit about that. Yeah, we have some really good coaches. Before it was Didier Maturin, now it's Julien Garcer. And yes, they have a lot of abilities to

help athletes and to know each pilot well, how he's flying and to say the good word before to go to fly. Sometimes it's to activate us, sometimes it's just to we are on fire. Like me, always I'm sometimes too much on pressure and too much on fire and you have to just calm me from the good word and the good way of thinking how I will fly. So maybe if I'm I said, I just want to go. He said, just before, take five minutes and you watch the other to take off and then you can take off. Just to see if you are climbing, if it's not too risky. and that will just you will just go lower

in pressure and that will be okay sometimes it's just oh go listen some music yeah to calm a bit and uh sometimes you just focus on the part of the flights here you you will have to attack so just before the this part uh try to to be well activated And that's the same on the radio. Be focused, guys. The race will start here. And it's like 50 kilometers that we are flying. But now the race is starting now. So just be focused on this moment. yeah it depends on the coach but until now in the in france we have a good good coaches and they have the good abilities to to find the good

words for us so yeah that's hopefully I mean, you guys are smashing it anyways in team and individual and men and women categories. So you

Honorin Hamard: definitely have an amazing setup. You know, there's no doubts about that. But can you just help us know how many people do you have in your team? Like when France as a nation goes to the world, how many people travel with you guys? Like how do you have a physio? Do you have a psychologist? Do you have a coach? Like what all, what all is a photo? The official databases, like the one, Sometimes we have a doctor, we have a

physiotherapist and normally that's it. And we have the coach and often they take some already made meal for the night. so we don't have to cook nothing and that's so we can be really chill after the race and just recover drink water and do some stretching a bit of musculation also because that's quite important for the shoulders What did you say? A bit of? Musculation. Yeah, so it's a general physical preparation and you can... Especially for shoulders because they are always in use in the air and you can have a bit of some inflammation if you don't care enough of them. Okay. Yes. Yeah, it's...

Honorin Hamard: Yeah, no, you guys seem to definitely have a pretty amazing team. Just talking about analyzing the day and analyzing your tracks, are there certain things that you guys look at? I mean, of course, weather forecast and the task committee does that for you. But do you personally look at some specifics before you finally go out on launch and get in the air? Yeah, in competition, to analyze the weather is not so important, I

think. because the mid director will give you all the sensors on the takeoff and sometimes even if you listen it too much you will not focus enough in the air of what are the real conditions sometimes they say it's 20 kilometers per hour west and in fact in the air you have south so it's important to not focus on the weather and just to focus on what you will have in the air And for sure, you can just put in a part of your brain, maybe it can have 30 kilometers per hour wind on the landing because they say it will come at the end of the day. Okay, you put it on one part of your head and

just you will observe in the air what happened. And it's important that your coach also is or someone is on the landing field to announce what is the wind on the landing field. that can give you a big information to decide the end of your flight, what you will do.

I don't remember the answer to the question. The second question was that once you have settled down at the end of the day and you are

Honorin Hamard: understanding how your performance was, What is the best way to do your track analysis? I mean, for example, when I look at my tracks, I just look, okay, here was the turbo, here was the trigger, and this is what the speed, but how do professionals do it? How do you analyze your own tracks at the end of the day? Yeah, it's all to know the... the local site and what is the weather locally you can't really know even if you don't know like

when I was world champion I didn't know the place sometimes you just have to follow the group when you don't know how it will be and if you think it will be good in front just go so you don't have to really know the place and to study the terrain and that's okay

You can watch on Google Earth sometimes how is coming the wind from each valley, but they will redo it on the initial briefing. In fact, everything is happening and just collect the information and that's it. After, for cross-country, yeah, you have to prepare quite a lot your flights to know maybe the terrain. You will know the mountains and everything, so you don't have to really study that, but you know at which time I need to be here. otherwise I'm late and at this place I have to be over 3000 meters otherwise I will lose time it's few details like that to be fast and to be a big XA flight and after the flight you can analyze the lines you took or you can be faster maybe you lose too much time because

yeah you were 200 meters too low on this part and on the other part it was not good enough to climb so 200 meters above it's better and yeah I was too late so I took this waste phase and it was really too late like 15-30 minutes so I have to be faster on this part yeah there is few things you can see like that you can see also to analyze your track if you did well the turns in both side because if you turn only just one side it's not It's not that it's not good, it can be good for one day, but normally when you find a thermal it can be left or right, so normally it's 50-50. So at the end of

the day, if you just thermal in the right side, maybe you miss some thermals because you are just focused on the right and you know that it's your best side. But no, to turn I just decide when I'm a bit pushed on the left, so okay, I go on the left. I don't think about, oh, that's my left hand, my right hand. That's quite important to be good to turmoil in both directions. Yeah, 100%. You know, I quickly want to come when you said

Honorin Hamard: about decision making. I remember about this post that you made on Facebook once that you were doing really well and your stabilo got caught in a tree and that is why it ruined that task for you. When it comes to scratching or pushing limits or taking risks, you know, is there something that you should particularly keep in mind when you're pushing it that close with such high performance wings and in such high stakes? Yeah, like for the French Titan, we were pushing quite close to the cliff, but that was a cliff with a lot of trees. So I said I can push

along the trees because I have 99% of chance to be stuck in the trees. I will not hit the rocks. So I take some risks, but it's often considered that, yeah, normally if I fall, I will not hurt too much myself. And for sure that can happen. I took a... I don't remember if it was a frontal or an asymmetric, but it recovered quite well. But I didn't have enough place to go out of the trees, so I touched the trees and I turned around the tree. But yeah, I knew that, okay, if something happened, I'm in the trees. and not in the cliff so yeah and you have to be scared and to not push along the

the big rocks when it's uh it's too dangerous i was full speed and if it was rocks i was at just uh maybe 75 on the on the speed bar to keep a bit of margin to not risk to collapse full speed along the the rocks so yeah for sure you have to just find the good stuff to not be hurt and to the sweet spot to fly as long as possible until you are 60 70 years old

Honorin Hamard: Or hopefully longer. I think you said your grandfather still flies, or I don't remember. I read it somewhere, but somebody said. No, my father

didn't fly, but my coach, I had a coach at 74 years old. He was my coach when I was 17. And that was quite impressive to see him flying. And I said, wow, he's coaching a guy of 17 years old and he has 74. Wow, I want to fly until 74 years old. I mean, that's mad amazing experience. Yeah, that's one sport where your career can be super long because you don't have to be in your body. It's possible to fly a lot of hours and a lot of competition, even if you are old. And there is not a lot of problems. You can add some stuff, some more pulleys to have less work to do with your legs. You can

find some solution to fly a long time in your life. And you know what? I'm so excited. I can't wait to do this interview again once we are 74 to 75. I

Honorin Hamard: hope to.

Yeah, I mean, you are winning at it anyways. I just need to catch up. I just need to get competing and start plugging it in. But talking about coach, you know, we're reaching the last point of the show. And I just want to quickly ask you this question. Not a lot of people are born in the whole French setup and these amazing things that are available to you guys. How should a person find a coach or a mentor which is enabling the knowledge transfer or the skill development in the other part of the world? How to go out and seek a trustworthy coach? Do you have any

thoughts on that, if you can throw some light on that? It's a bit like the... the psychologist you have to find the good one yeah and it's not

it's not easy and to find the good answer in fact so if you go about too much and the the psychologist say yeah it's because of that that that you try it's not working but you have to change because it's not that like it took me like uh three psychologists to to find the good one and i found the solution and i i knew when he told me that oh yeah that's that uh Yeah, so it was the live tracking like I said sometimes in interviews that I want to show behind the live tracking, with the live tracking to my father that I was in front and I was thinking always about that during the flights and I

was not doing my race, I was doing the race for him and that was the mistake. and time to understand that and to work on it and to know what to do it took me a lot of time but less than 10 years but yeah and man come on dude 14 year flying 16 year competing 25 year world champion that is not a lot of time You cannot say that. I still have some problems like that. And you can see in some tasks, I did a few mistakes and I know that, oh no, that's my old mistakes and I can't do that. And the day after it's solved. So you... It's good to know that, to not reproduce it, and just to

remember sometimes that you can do this mistake and you take all your responsibilities to not redo it again, and that will save quite a lot of bomb outs. yeah and hopefully you come across a coach who is willing yeah but i know that it's not easy especially because there is not a lot of coach who understand what is paragliding and uh or maybe the for the french it was easier because they we have quite a lot of world champions in fact and the one i went to to see already coached three world champions in paragliding so that was a bit easier to understand our sport and what

we need and what i need but for other countries yeah Try to explain her or him what is paragliding, exactly what you are doing, and what are your mistakes to really find a solution for you. Yeah, I agree. And fingers crossed, everybody finds their own wizard or foes. If you're training

Honorin Hamard: by yourself, I have seen a lot of people, like, you know, if you don't have access to a coach, if you don't have the amazing setup that you guys have, I've seen a lot of people say that I only do competitions, you know, and that's because... Parabat is expensive as hell anyways. It takes a lot of money to buy the gliders and all the equipment, then traveling and all the boating and lodging. So if you have to become a good competition pilot, within your limited resources, should you prioritize practicing cross-country or should you only prioritize playing in competitions? What will increase your chances to be a good cross-country pilot if you have limited resources? That's a

combination of two. So I did a lot of cross country in the same time of the competition and that helped me a lot. So I think you should do both in fact. Half of cross country and half of competition of your time. If you can just do one, the one you enjoy the most. that is such a cool answer that makes so much sense yeah because yeah you can't be super good in competition if you are not doing cross country and for me that's that's both are the one you enjoy the most No, but you are saying if you have limited resources, you should still try and make a balance between

Honorin Hamard: doing cross-country and doing competitions. It does not make sense doing just competitions for the sake of it. Cross-country is a necessity to become a good competition pilot. And just after, when you are really good, you can start to do just competitions. But otherwise,

you learn so much by doing cross-country with other pilots all alone. Yeah, you need it. Thank you for clarifying, because that's a dilemma

Honorin Hamard: that I have a lot of times. You know, last question before we move on to the story time between you and Maxime and the tailwind landing. If you had to start now, you know, if you were a beginner and you had to just start from zero ourself, what is the roadmap that you would recommend to a new pilot who wants to follow your footsteps and become one of the best? so first by yourself is to practice a lot on the ground and if it's soaring sight it's

even better because you can top land try to to control the glider that you know what will happen and not be surprised because when you are surprised that's where you are scared and when you will have a collapses that you know what to do in fact and you you know that ah it's because it was light i didn't put my brake action So for that, you have to fly a lot, but you have also to understand well what will happen. So it's SIV course, it's playing on the ground to have a bit of more feeling. Yeah, because I think too much pilots are scared now and that's because they don't

understand enough what will happen in the air and what happened when they have a sketch.

Honorin Hamard: I see. Well, thank you for that amazing tip. So I think a lot of guests on my show just say that make sure you're having fun. So if you're having fun, then you're doing something right and then you're staying motivated as well. All right, Honor, before we switch it off, if you can tell us the story from 18th Current Lighting Worlds, Task 8. You and Maxime. Can you please start from the low save? Because I think that was low save of the century. I mean, I read your Facebook post, man. And I don't know, please help me enlighten because I have to translate everything from French to

English. Yeah, with Maxime, we made a lot of final glides like that. That's each time super risky. And for this World Championship, for this

task, we say with the coach, if we are at the end, if one is not in advance compared to the other, we just go with the group and we finish the race together. And I saw this, that one guy was in front of us, of the giggle and the group, and he took a thermal. I said, oh, okay, we go. We were a bit slow to go to the final glide, but I thought we will take the thermal and we finished. And when we arrived below him, the thermal stopped. And I was one of the first in this thermal. So I said, what are we doing? If we are going straight, we will have front wind and we will be too short. or we

going back on the the mountain we climb and we do the goal easily but i saw everybody coming so i said no i will not stop i will go so i went and we took the front wind and we started to be too low to reach the goal straight And everybody was shouting on the radio, why are you doing that? It's super dangerous. We will fuck the French team. Because if we are not too on the goal, the French team was like fifth for the final result. And we were completely killing the team result. But in the same time, we have to play individuals. So... when the thermal is here and you have to go and when we

missed it because it was the end of the terminal with we can't come back here on the back because it was always if some guys are trying and they made it with the podium so finally i had to try and it was all about the lines at the end the lines I knew that there is a little place which is a bit hotter than all the other spaces because of the fields because of the little birds which are often above this field so I decided to go straight to do the waypoint and to come back above this little hill and that was the good solution because i found the super light thermals and with the

winds which is going to the direction of the landing and just maxim found it below me and all the others around the bomb out that was just amazing sensation That was super scary for the team and for our Titan. I thought, oh yes, I won the world championship. But that was Maxime who found it also with me and finally we made it. But that was also beautiful because we deserved it because we found this thermal and we were together. So I can't blame him to found it and to reach the goal. He deserved it. He flew well. But yeah, that was not intentionally at the beginning that I made

it. But it was well finished, and that was just amazing, with a lot of pressure, a lot of adrenaline, that was just amazing.

Even at 20 meters ground, you are not on the ground, that's my motto, so... yeah you have to respect that and to always find a temple you can always climb and find something so never forget no not forget never give up too early What an inspiring way to fly. Like, honestly, one meter

Honorin Hamard: above the goal line. Dude, how did you take that risk? The last World Cup, we made that also with Maxime, one meter above the goal line with a lot of

backwind. And we were at Germany in almost nothing. And I said, oh, no, I can't take the risk to go above the goal line. And he went first. And I said, oh, OK, so if he went first, Maybe we'll bomb out just before the line so I can go and we cross the line just one meter above the ground. That's scary, but that makes good stories, so we have to do it. Definitely. The more you do it, the more I'll bring you on the show to tell

Honorin Hamard: people about this, man. This needs to go out in the world and... Because there's a lot of people know about how Maxime fly because he does a lot of hike and fly. But I think there needs to be more awareness about racing paragliders as well in World Cups. It's such a beautiful side of our sport as well. Honor, last question. How many hours? How many hours now? Eight. I did almost like 300 hours when I was not in Ozone so from 2005 2015

so it's like 3000 hours plus this hours with Ozone it's almost 500 hours per year so you can add at least 4000 so it's like

It's like 8,000. Wow, man, you're living the good life, aren't you? So cool. And ever since you got on with Ozone, you have your main source of

Honorin Hamard: income is Ozone? Yeah, I'm also a piloting instructor, but I don't have the license because I'm working for Ozone now. and that's better for me

because I can have holidays and I can work all the gliders that I develop I can then fly them in competition so I know really well the product and I do it for myself and for the others so something with a lot of feeling in the break and with good performances so yeah that's really good to join both the work and the competition with the sport you like and you truly seem to have found your calling in the beginning of your life and no wonder it's paying off so well I think you've done the hard work to make it count well on that note on earth Thanks a million times for sharing your insights.

Honorin Hamard: It's been an absolute honor and a pleasure to talk to you. And so it was a pleasure too. If I can help some other pilots, even if my English is not

super nice, I try. And your flying is super nice and that is what counts. So I think that is what fascinates and brings us all together. The love

Honorin Hamard: for the out of flight. But yeah, thanks a ton for your time and I wish you all the very best for next competitions and every time you take to the air and cannot wait to bring your stories out to our audiences again, man. Thank you so much. It's been a pleasure. Thank you. Have a nice flight to

you all too.