CLOUDBASE MAYHEM

Calef Letorney was a professional paddler back in the early 2000's who made the switch to flying and has never looked back. When you think of places to fly in the world you don't often put the North East US on the list. There's a lot of trees, cloudbase is low, weather if fickle. But that's where Calef found himself after learning to fly in the Colorado Rockies and his desire to send meant the fir...

Pilots and friends Pierre Carter, Jeremy Holdcroft, Scott Baker, Richard "Barbs" Barber and legendary mountaineer Andy De Klerk set off this June to attempt to break the altitude record by flying up the Baltoro Glacier to K2 in Pakistan. Everything was going well...until it wasn't. Andy suffers a heart attack (in the air!), and Scott breaks the rule of not making a tricky situation worse by blowin...

We have a saying in our sport, "never avoid inconvenience." But it's easier said than done. An easy field a kilometer away from the train station, or a really tricky field right next to it? Landing in strong wind across a river that means a long walk, or landing in strong wind near a road that will have rotor? In the 21' Vercofly a number of pilots were injured. Some due to rowdy conditions, but s...

UPDATE to this podcast: Cross Country magazine has just (July 2nd, 2025) broke an incredible story that Eliya Zemmour, featured in this episode has been regularly faking his flights on XContest, using other pilot's flights as his own. As Cross Country wrote, it is both sad and shocking in equal measure. This remains an interesting and exciting show, but we have no idea what is truth and fiction...

Andrey Kuznetsov has been on the national sky diving team for many years, holds several world records and the genius record (100 way canopy formation record) and has been a long-time test pilot for reserves. He made the transition quite easily from sky diving to paragliding in 2009 and skipped the C class altogether as he found it too slow! He recently flew across Vermont and landed on the beach a...

The toughest adventure race on Earth starts in a few hours! 32...

5 time Red Bull X-Alps pilot Honza Rejmanek and his son Martin return to the Cloudbase Mayhem this week to recount yet another incredible vol-biv tandem adventure in the Alps. Martin is now 14, and he and his dad have been tackling some pretty epic lines in the Alps since Martin was 8. In this episode they recount their 3rd attempt at hiking and flying from Annecy to Zermatt last summer and hookin...

In this episode we discuss Philipp's zen for going big, being a professional pilot, the importance of having an acro background and acro training, vol biv, and just some good old fashioned storytelling in the highest mountains on Earth. Tuck in for some inspiration!

This week we dive into spring with the current World Champion and long-time Ozone test pilot Russ Ogden and multiple US National Champion Nick Greece. Year after year we see accidents in free flight spike in spring. Spicy conditions, rusty skills, new unfamiliar gear, heightened stoke, another year behind us, lack of confidence... we explore the many things that might have an impact on why we see...

There are times in a pilots career when things do not go according to plan. This is one of those times. Nikolay Lipko had a rather unusual (but not unheard-of) event flying in Chamonix, France that thankfully ended quite well thanks to a successful reserve deployment. As with all incidents, there is hindsight and modifications to how to take to the skies. And if anything else, this story is a case...

Our Mayhem editor Myles Connolly is about 350 hours into his flying journey and is leaving soon for an SIV course with Jocky Sanderson in Turkey. We thought it would be fun to connect and have him fire questions at me about all the things he's currently curious about as his XC skills and training progress. Hike and fly; risk related to big events like the Red Bull X-Alps; how to approach Vol Biv (...

Gaspard Petiot is a mountain guide and very accomplished pilot who competed successfully in the Red Bull X-Alps in 2015 (5th, Monaco), 2017 (broken wrist, withdrawn after leading day 6) and 2019 (7th, Monaco) despite having very bad knees. In this episode we rewind the clock as we have done with the others in this X-Alps series and hear the behind-the-scenes stories that the fans didn't see on liv...

Manuel Nubel has competed in four Red Bull X-Alps, starting in 2015. On Team USA 1 we call him the comeback kid. He often starts in the middle or back of the pack but gets stronger and more crafty as the race goes on. We rewind the clock to 2015, his first race and find out the back story of landing in a tree on his way to Monaco and the hilarity that ensues, the ups and downs of his campaigns, (f...

Debu Choudhury hails from the small village of Manali, India, a gateway to Ladakh and the infamous Karakoram pass. Pilots the world over know the region because of nearby Bir, one of the most reliable big-mountain flying sites in the world. Debu began flying there 29 years ago and chases it just as hard today as he ever has. In the world of paragliding he's done and continues to do it all. Acro, h...

ve got a head cold and hoarse throat this week which makes interviewing pretty hard, so we're diving back into the archives to bring you a show that was great then, and better now and an excellent tune-up before spring. "Mastering Autonomy" with Manu Bonte. And a couple important topics in the show opener that I've been meaning to hit for weeks. Enjoy!

The World Cup is as high as it gets in competition hang gliding and paragliding. For many it is the ultimate goal in cross country flying. But getting an invitation to fly in the world cup isn't very straightforward. First there are the many organizations- the FAI, CIVL, PWCA, and a nations flying organization (USHPA, BHPA, etc.). What's the difference between Cat 1 and Cat 2? What is the WPRS and...

A common question we ask on the Mayhem is "what would you do if you could rewind the clock to your 50 hour self?" One of our listeners reached out awhile back and wanted to know what we should tell our zero hour selves. When we first begin we know absolutely nothing other than we want to fly! But getting into the sport is daunting. How do you pick the right instructor? What qualifications or quali...

Elizabeth (Eli) Egger is one of the rookies in the 23' Red Bull X-Alps. She's also a paragliding instructor, Niviuk team pilot, high-level competition pilot (we sat down after the Superfinal in Mexico to have this chat), has supported Simon Oberrauner (2017) and Aaron Durogati (2019 and 2021) in the X-Alps, and has a very interesting professional background in earth mapping and engineering. In thi...

We keep the absolutely nutty going this week with 5-time Red Bull X-Alps competitor, 2 X Superfinal champion, and winner of just about everything in our sport, Aaron Durogati. Aaron and I sat down in person on the final day of the Superfinal in Valle De Bravo in Mexico and he had me in stitches from the get-go. Aaron is a fantastic story-teller and his triumphs and beat-downs in the X-Alps are jaw...

We're continuing the theme of radical stories from radical people this week with Honza Rejmanek, who competed in 5 Red Bull X-Alps from 2007 to 2015. Honza begins the storytelling in 2007 with what has to the hardest start in the history of the race after eating some questionable food the night before the event even started, puking (and worse) all night, spending the night on the Dachstein because...