Cloudbase Mayhem Podcast

Théo De Blic is one of the new generation of professional acro pilots who has been staggering audiences around the world with his incredibly difficult twisted sequences. In this episode we learn how Théo has become one of the most-winning pilots on the World Cup tour and how he's making a living from flying and then we get into the essentials of progression, the ardors of competition, the best equ...

Phil sends big lines in the biggest terrain in the Alps and decided a couple decades ago to ditch his engineering career because the sky was calling. An Australian native, Phil discovered Zermatt over twenty years ago and made it his home. We discuss the business of tandem flying and the inherent risks involved; the importance of confidence when flying XC; how to "own it"; the best flying sites in...

It's here folks! The bonus episode you've all been waiting for. We released this follow up episode with Chrigel Maurer a couple months ago for our Patreon supporters. Don't miss these! Sign up to support the show through Patreon and get immediate access to bonus material like this on a regular basis. All we ask for is a buck an episode.

For all of us who make the yearly winter migration to Valle...

Xandi Meschuh has been in the flying game since the very beginning. He learned to fly RC planes from his father, a pilot before he was ten years old and got the paragliding bug soon afterwards. Xandi has his own flight park near Gerlitzen, Austria where he teaches new students as well as seasoned professional pilots looking to nail their first Infinite loop. He has taught SIV since SIV began; has...

In this wide-ranging and laugh-out-loud episode Dustin Martin takes us through some close calls with tornados (plural!); how to assess a gust front; a brief history of hang gliders; the importance of mentors; how to find good lines; avoiding sink; working light lift; reducing drag; advice for new pilots; chasing world records; sponsorship; being a student and building a foundation; the origins of...

In this episode we turn the tables a bit and I get interviewed by Nik Hawks, who followed the race closely and had a bunch of questions for me. Why did we pull the nightpass the first night? What mistakes were made? What did we learn from the 2015 race that came in handy this time? That bomb-out on day three when we were in such a strong position- what happened and what were the consequences? This...

Pal Takats began flying 16 years ago in the flatlands of Hungary and has since created a career any pilot would envy. One of the first Red Bull acro pilots and the man responsible for many of the current and modern acro combinations (the Joker, Cowboy, Esfera, etc.) Pal does paramotor demos for Red Bull at air races around the world, base jumps in his free time, flies speed wings, has twice compet...

Imagine an engineless airplane reaching the edge of space. Crazy? Impossible? In this episode of the Cloudbase Mayhem Kevin Brooker, a passionate sailplane pilot takes us through the long history of sailplanes to the stuff that is at the far edge of what the imagination can even grasp. Just recently the altitude record was broken (52,000 feet!)- without an engine flying in wave in the Andes.

Episode 50 is all about competitions. From flying psychology to training David Snowden has taken 25 years of flying passion into figuring out to take a country (Australia) with plenty of talent but with few of the resources that France, Germany, and Switzerland (for example) have to be a serious player on the world stage. In this podcast Dave sheds light on their journey from not even having a tea...

Honza Rejmanek competed in the Red Bull X-Alps five times. He finished in 3rd place in 2009 and made goal in Monaco in his last campaign in 2015. Many of our listeners will also know Honza from his regular meteo column in Cross Country Magazine. Honza makes a living as a meteorologist and in this episode we tap into his vast knowledge of the invisible world we operate in and how to understand how...

Max Fanderl began flying paragliders and then hang gliders in the late 80's. A few months after his first flight he quit his job to become an instructor and has made a life of flying. He was a test pilot in the 90's, moved to Canada after going there on a vacation and never returning home where he opened a school and eventually competed in the Red Bull X-Alps four times. In this episode we explore...

The Red Bull live tracking is great, but it misses out on all the behind-the-scenes and in this talk we dive into what the fans don't get to see. We talk training, supplements, our decision on using the nightpass the first night, mistakes made, good moves, dicey launches, crazy weather and how the 2017 race was the most brutal yet. In 12 days I did 16 1/2 marathons, climbed the height of Everest 4...

Reavis learned to fly a decade ago and had a pretty unusual experience with being in the air- he doesn't experience fear. But he had a very firm understanding of the risks and wanted to be a safe pilot and took his progression and learning seriously and conservatively. This approach has given Reavis, who is now one of the pilots who regularly sends huge lines in North America a unique flying toolb...

Chrigel Maurer is the undisputed king of paragliding and after his 5th straight X-Alps win I get the feeling that he's just getting started. Chrigel was the world champion 3 times, is an acro champion, test pilot for Advance, two times winner of the X-Pyr, regularly dominates the Swiss League and just simply wins- over, and over and over again. Everyone has heard of Chrigel's famous training (grou...

"Gutsy girls skateboard, climb trees, clamber around, fall down, scrape their knees, get right back up — and grow up to be brave women. Learn how to spark a little productive risk-taking and raise confident girls with stories and advice from firefighter, luger, author, paraglider and all-around adventurer Caroline Paul."- TED

This is the most critical podcast episode we've made available to date on the show. As human flight junkies we participate in activities that let's face it- are dangerous. In this episode we sit down with Matt Wilkes, an anaesthesia and intensive care doctor based in Edinburgh, Scotland who specializes in extreme physiology and remote medicine to walk us through best practices when things go wrong...

Benjamin Jordan made history in 2016 flying a 1,000 km bivvy line solo from Vancouver to Calgary across the Coast Range and Rocky Mountains of BC and Alberta, an expedition that took 39 days to complete. To some bold pilots maybe an obvious and tempting line, but there were plenty of reasons it had never been flown, which are in part the subject of Benjamin's new documentary "Strong the Wind Blows...

Chris Santacroce has been a pillar in human flight for nearly thirty years. A long time Red Bull Air Force athlete; co-owner and founder of Superfly Paragliding in Utah; founder of Project Airtime which allows the disabled to fly; total air Jedi on anything that flies- from powered trikes to wingsuits and everything in between, Chris has been one of the most requested guests for the show and now h...

Antoine Laurens began flying in 1992 when he was just seventeen years old. He's lived a life of adventure and flying has been a way of life for the last two and half decades. One of the world's great vol-biv pilots Antoine crossed over a 1,000 km route of the Himalayas (the film trailer of the "Himalayan Odyssey" can be seen here) and was part of the small team I joined in 2012 when we flew from t...

"If you believe you can do it, you can do it. But that doesn't mean it will happen tomorrow. You have to do the work, nothing replaces mileage (or in this case, air time)." Little nuggets of wisdom like this is why Jeff Shapiro returns to the Cloudbase Mayhem in this amazing follow up to our first podcast a year and a half ago. The first time we spoke Jeff was just learning how to paraglide after...

Ground handling is the cornerstone of being a good, safe pilot. But of all the most important foundational building blocks you can practice it is often the most neglected. For many pilots "groundhandling" is pulling the wing up and getting off the hill. This is only the first step. Many of our listeners have asked for a specific ground handling episode and now here it is!

"If the conditions are too gnarly, don't land, climb and get to better air!" Thoughts like this from Nick Neynens are what allowed him to finish the 2015 Red Bull X-Alps in 10th place. Nick has an untraditional approach and it works- he's flown vol-biv all over the world and has competed in the X-Pyr and X-Berg as well. In this episode we learn more about his untraditional approach and talk about...

Christina Kolb is the current female world acro champion and one of the few women in the world who has perfected the Infinite tumble. In Annecy this year she won the female class and was 12th overall- an incredible achievement. In this episode we visit and revisit the cause of many accidents and how preventable they are, how to learn acro, the importance of SIV and ground handling, why altitude is...

Tom Payne competed in the 2009 X-Alps and was Jon Chambers supporter in 2011 and 2013 and edited Jon Chambers book "hanging in there" which documents Jon's X-Alps campaigns. But the X-Alps is just a blip in Tom's long, passionate career in paragliding. Tom has been flying for over 20 years and is one of my own personal mentors. He's been a major player in the comp scene and is well known across Eu...