A little over a year ago I interviewed Gordon Boettger after his record-breaking 3000+ km wave flight in the Sierras flying an Arcus jet-equipped glider with night vision goggles (NVG’s), a flight that lasted 17 hours and started at 0230 in the morning. Four months later Gordon and his co-pilot Bruce Campbell beat their own record again, this time flying 18.5 hours and getting beyond 3100 km. And he says they are just getting started. What he’s doing is way, way, way out there and is blowing...

This is one of the craziest flying and remarkable survival stories you’ll ever hear. In this conversation, Canadian pilot and doctor Ben Lewis recounts his harrowing experience during a major cloudsuck incident while paragliding in Bir, India. He shares his background as a pilot, the intimidating nature of mountain flying, and the factors that are contributing to the carnage occurring this season in the Himalayas. Ben details the day of his incident while attempting to beat his personal best,...

In this conversation, American pilot and Adventurer Evan Bouchier shares his journey from extreme kayaking to paragliding, detailing his experiences and breakthroughs in the sport. He discusses the transition from intense paddling to flying, the importance of tandem flying in skill development, and the ups and downs of competition flying. Evan emphasizes the significance of flow, intuition, and visualization in enhancing performance, while also reflecting on the parallels between kayaking and...

In this conversation I speak with Cross Country magazine co-owner and long time editor Hugh Miller about his extensive experience in paragliding and his recent foray into sailplane flying. We discuss the differences between the two sports, the training and costs involved in becoming a sailplane pilot, and the unique experiences that come with cross-country flying. Hugh shares insights on the community and culture within gliding, the innovations in the industry, and reflects on the importance...

Day 35 crossing the Alaska Range approaching the Susitna GlacierWe flip the roles in this episode of the Cloudbase Mayhem. Laurent and Matt, the hosts of the Exit Point Podcast, which is dedicated to Base and Wingsuit Base invited your host Gavin McClurg on their show to discuss the commonalities of risk across extreme sports, flow, navigating intermediate syndrome, how important having mentors are, and a lot more. We rewind the clock back to my ski racing days and how early injuries affected...

Heading up and over the Aletch GlacierMathew Fiddes only got into flying a few years ago but has been chasing about as hard as you can. Some early stumbles brought humility and perspective and then last year, for the 23′ XContest season Matt began with the goal of winning the Australian XC league. But as the flights chalked up and he starting climbing up the ranks for pilots who had the most 100 km flights, he thought maybe an even better goal would be to bank 52 100 km flights in a single...

A little over a year ago professional mountaineering guide Peter Von Känel had an idea to summit all the 4,000 meter peaks in Switzerland by only using his feet and a paraglider. Then he thought, “let’s go a little bigger and do ALL 82 of the 4,000 meter peaks in the Alps!” Peter had the mountaineering skills and was a very accomplished XC pilot back in the late 90’s, but for this rather audacious undertaking he’d need a partner who knew how to move in the mountains and could get his wing...

It’s not often you get to be credited for creating a whole new sport! “Flaring” or parakiting is all the rage in some parts of the world and my guest for today’s show Benni Bölli- inventor, designer, and passionate pilot is the head developer for Flare, which makes the Moustache and the Line. “Parakiting” is simply the combination of a kitesurfing wing and a paragliding wing. Dynamic, fast, wicked playful- it takes soaring to a whole new level and makes playing on dunes and cliffs wildly fun...

Time for another Ask Me Anything show! In this episode we tackle three questions that came in from our Patreon supporters. The first was to go deep on the new class of C wing 2-Liners. To answer this I sat down (virtually) with SIV guru Malin Lobb, who sees these wings in all kinds of configurations in his SIV courses. How do you know you’re ready for a 2-liner? Any downsides? How do they behave differently than a 3-liner and what do pilots stepping up for the first time need to be aware of?...

Mike Vergalla, founder of the Free Flight Lab, discusses his journey into paragliding and his mission to explore the potential of paragliders beyond just a sport. He highlights three pillars of the Free Flight Lab: climate science, conservation, and safety. Mike shares his experiments with high-altitude paragliding and the potential for paragliders to be used in atmospheric research, weather forecasting, and environmental conservation. He also emphasizes the need for more data collection and...

Eight years ago Jeremy Wilstein discovered a very simple concept called breathwork when studying the “Ice Man” Wim Hof. In this episode we dive into the many benefits of proper breathing and how a quick few minutes of intentional breathing can hack your sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous system to increase your performance, increase your safety, increase mental stability, and decrease anxiety and depression. Jeremy has been offering his breath work courses to our community in the US...

We continue our “legends” series with alpinist, pilot and entrepreneur Dick Jackson, founder of Aspen Expeditions (1977) and Aspen Paragliding (1989). Dick begins his amazing story with his journey into alpinism and paragliding, starting with his early expeditions to Denali and the Alps. He discusses the early days of paragliding in Aspen, where they used wings primarily as a descent tool. Dick talks about the lightweight gear and the evolution of paragliders, as well as the camaraderie and...

My neighbor and mentor Nate Scales has been flying paragliders at a high level for over 30 years. He competed in the 2007 Red Bull X-Alps. Owned the US foot launch record out of Idaho, where conditions can be about as rough as it can get. He has been flying 2 liners since their inception in 2009. But until this week had never done an SIV, and never stalled a glider. He finally decided the time was right and it was time to conquer his fears. This is his story. Let’s call it a PSA for those on...

Martin Scheel was one of the best climbers in the world when he discovered paragliding and the sky crack immediately became his new passion. His images and videos have entertained and awed for several decades across the free-flight spectrum. In the mid 90’s he helped create the Swiss League and has headed it up since. His collaborative efforts with generations of pilots have helped create some of the most successful pilots on Earth, including Chrigel Maurer, Stephan Morganthaler, Dominik...

Dr. Bill Beninati has a lifelong love of flying that led him to a career in the Air Force. He served as a physician specializing in pulmonary/critical care medicine, sleep disorders and operational fatigue, and flight medicine focused on medical and physiologic fitness to fly. For 13 years he was physician leader for the Air Force critical care air transport teams, and deployed multiple times to interesting and unfriendly places to do this mission. His civilian career led him to Utah where he...

John Heiney started hang gliding in 1978 and he’s still going strong today. His photographs of free flight have been on more than 50 magazine covers. He broke the Guinness World Record for looping in 1988. And then he broke his own record again ten years later! He was crowned the world aerobatics champion four times. He’s a machinist; diesel rabbit aficionado (he’s driving his fifth these days); hang gliding instructor, has more than 40 wings in his garage; worked on numerous commercials and...

Kinga Masztalerz gets after it. She picked up paragliding not too long ago, but has been pretty fierce about chasing it hard from the beginning. She’s tackled the Red Bull X-Alps twice, flown all over the world, runs her own hike and fly race in New Zealand, and instructs at home in New Zealand and in places like Bir, India. But her journey has had quite a few scary bumps on the way. We start off with her experience in the X-Alps. She shares her initial excitement and overwhelming feelings...

Tom flying the Peregrine “In comparison [to the flying scene] the rest of my life has been a disappointment.” –Tom Peghiny. This quote came into my inbox a few months ago from Hugh Miller at Cross Country magazine with the words “you’ve got to interview Tom!” If you’ve seen the incredible film “Big Blue Sky” which documents the early days of hang gliding you’ll recognize Tom Peghiny (if you haven’t- watch it, it’s awesome). Tom started flying hang gliders at the age of 13 in...

Something pretty special is happening right now in the US when it comes to competitions. This is of course subjective, but in my opinion we have the most dynamic, fun, inclusive comp scene in the world. And it is being led by our women. Our US National Champion this year is Galen Kirkpatrick, who was on the previous show and been lodging some incredible results- 1st, Red Rocks Wide Open (overall), 3rd Chelan (overall), 3rd Monarca (overall); Alexia Fischer is the top ranked PILOT in the WPRS...

Galen Kirkpatrick came into flying just seven short years ago and is the 2023 US National Champion, the first female in the history of paragliding to do so. Not long after her first flights she quit her day job and dove into into the deep end of the paragliding pool. She sought the best mentors, got into acro, became a sought-after tow tech, became and instructor, got into comps and hasn’t looked back. Her story is a remarkable climb to the top against a stiff headwind. It began with a...

Pierre flying off Everest South African pilot and adventurer Pierre Carter has been at this game for a very long time, and he hasn’t wasted any time chasing thin air dreams. Pierre has been knocking off the world’s seven summits for nearly 20 years (some of them several times), and has flown off all but Denali (because it’s illegal) and has only Antarcticas Mt Vinson remaining. In between his efforts to summit and fly off the worlds highest peaks (including Carstensz Pyramid in Papua...

Marcus King has been flying pretty much full time since 1991. He spent many years with the early Ozone team and has been on the design team with Cross Country Magazine for ages. All those gear and wing reviews you see in the magazine (and a TON of the photos!) are compliments of Marcus. In this chat Marcus shares his background in paragliding, his work in the industry, the rise of the sports class competitions, his involvement in the Red Bull X-Alps, and his passion for flying in the French...

Jake Holland is a British filmmaker and adventure pilot based in Chamonix. In this episode we discuss his totally wild experiences this season and last in Pakistan with professional climbers Will Sim and Fabi Buhl, and pilots and adventurers Aaron Durogati, Antoine Girard, Veso Ovcharov and others, and the challenges of capturing these high altitude adventures on film. We discuss the mission of using paragliders as an access tool to explore remote mountains, the economics of filmmaking in the...

Adventure often runs in the blood of Kiwis, and in Louis Tapper it runs thick. Long before Louis got hooked with flying he broke a world distance record in kitesurfing in Brazil and was (and remains) a pretty hard-core paddler. When he discovered flying he dug in hard. Louis competes regularly in World Cups around the world; is a 5-time New Zealand National Champion; and currently holds the out and back triangle records in New Zealand. In this episode we explore many aspects of managing risk,...