Ryan Swan Interview

Interview with Ryan Swan

While a lot of people know you, many don't. Where do you come from?

Well, I was raised in Tracyton, Washington my dad is a fireman, my mom is a librarian. My brother and I grew up in a total Leave it to Beaver household. I grew up hiking, skiing, and climbing I was a bit of an "extreme" skier in the early days. Of late, I have been working as a paraglider sales rep and have been trying to get to as many competitions as possible. I have found that I learn a lot of things at competition that I can pass on to students that I teach on trips and at courses. I have also coached some advanced maneuver 's, tried to learn some more aerobatic flying and learned to kite surf. Apart from that I have a girl friend , Sofia who flies a lot and who travels with me. We live in Salt Lake City, UT and I work for Super Fly. Many people know me from Airplay where I worked before moving to Super Fly.

Ryan, a lot has happened for you this year. You flew all over the world, went to the World Championships as Team Leader and then ended up having to round up a glider at the last minute and fly. You did great, and came back flying a competition glider at the US Nationals where you also did quite well. How would you summarize the last six months?

Lucky! I have been busy and lucky. Busy just trying to keep it all together. Last year I drove 45,000 miles. Lucky because I got to meet so many great people and see so many cool sights.

The event that we traveled to was the World Air Games which consisted of Paragliding, Ballooning, Gliding, Sky Diving, Hang Gliding, Ultralights, Paramotors and more. It just so happened that it was also the World Championships for Hang Gliding and for Paragliding. We got to see the Hang Gliders and also the Sky Divers during the games. The Sky Divers came to visit on a weather day and when we had weather day we went and watched skydiving. One day the Hang Gliders had their goal near the paragliding goal. One of my personal highlights was that Matt Taggart (from Ozone) Chris Muller (Canadian team) and I had opportunity to have dinner with the Moyes family. Steve Moyes is still very enthusiastic about flying, just like a person on a first flight, or at his first competition. It was cool to see Steve doing so well in competition again. After so many years in the sport, it is easy for the young pilots to write him off as a contender but they oftenforget he was once the world champion and that he can still fly with the very best. We also ate with the lone Canadian Hang Glider (Moyes factory pilot) Brett Haslett. He was the only Canadian Hang Glider pilot at the World Championships. Interestingly, he also flies paragliders very well. In fact, he was fourth at the Canadian Paragliding Nationals last year.

Anyway, the Paragliding World Championships were 14 days long, we stayed at Sierra Nevada Ski Area, the southernmost in Spain. The event sort of took over the ski area town that was generally abandoned because it was summertime. We had three people per room. Nice tight quarters.

We had a team leader meeting at 8:45 a.m. (just after coffee at 8a.m.) Then, we had a US Team briefing at 10:00 at our Hotel , often very hectic as everyone was getting up and ready to go fly. At 11:00 we took busses to one of three different launches. It was anywhere from 15 - 60 minutes to launch. At 12:00, or as soon as we arrived at launch, we set-up, laid our gliders in the best possible position and then went to the task briefing. The launch window generally opened 15 min. later. Directly after the task briefing we tried to get together to do a strategy meeting, Josh who was the only veteran of both the World Championships and the site helped the rest of us with start and course strategy, it was tough since we all had a short time to get ready to fly. It was important to launch and get up early, so that you could go with the good, lead gaggle. The launch window was open for an hour and fifteen. Most pilots did reverse inflations with only a few forwards here and there , it was incredible to watch 150 pilots scrambling to get in the air.

The upper launch was 12,700 ft. the lower was at 8 000. It was hot on launch, like 90 degrees. There were 150 Competitors, the conditions were turbulent and the climb rates were 600-1200 fpm. I'd call them small, bullet thermals. Sierra Nevada is the first site I have been to that doesn't really have an LZ. sure there are places to land, but none very obvious as good choices. It was generally a GPS Race to goal. There was a cylinder around a start point that you could start crossing at a certain time or sometimes, there were individual start times when you could start whenever you want and re-start was allowed. Josh Cohn an I (along with a large group of over anxious pilots) did so once because we crossed the start too soon .

Most flights were 2-3 hours. Generally, we used lots of speed system(full speed). On average there were a couple dozen major thermals in a flight and four to five turnpoints. With 1:00 launches and three hour tasks, the valley winds sometimes stopped the slower pilots forcing them to the ground. You needed to be quick to have a chance at making goal. By the time pilots were landing at goal, it was sometimes smoother lift, but almost always stronger wind.

Retrieves were easy for teams with vans and drivers. Everybody bought cell phones and were able to call organization, since radios didn't work. Vans generally came and took people to central locations where busses would pick up larger groups and take them back. I was lucky enough twice to land next to a German or Japanese pilot because they had their own vans and drivers. They almost always had room for additional pilots. My cell phone got stolen before the last day and I felt pretty lost without it.

How did you find the skill level in general?
The skill level was high, but lower than at a World Cup (PWC) , and higher than at the US Nationals. Just to give you an idea, there were people taking big deflations in the start gaggle every day. Most were aggressive professional pilots on comp gliders. The area around the take off was the main place where the thermals were going off, so we couldn't really spread out. Still, there was enough room for everyone, it was rare that people sunk out.

What kind of speeds were you all getting en route to goal?
Trim was about 30k on my GPS, when I had a tail or cross wind I'd see 50- 60k at trim and 70k on speed. I only saw a few big deflations while on speed. Once I was hands off the brakes all together. Most people were gliding without pulling any brake. One cool trick that I learned was to have the speed engaged, hands in the brakes, but to put my index fingers on the A's and my pinky fingers on the stabilo line. That way you feel the A's getting soft and can let off speed or when you hit some turbulence, you can pull on the stabilo a little. All this, so that you don't have to come off the speed system, pull too much brake or run blindly into big turbulence.

Almost all comp gliders. There were only a handful on DHV 2 or 2-3's. They were at a significant disadvantage, because of all of the into the wind glides. Most people had comp lines. The Gin Gliders Boomerang was the most popular , there were jokes about it being an "IROC" race.

I heard that there were some reserve deployments, do tell....
There were two deployment and an injury per day on the average. Most of the time it was because pilots got low and in the lee side. Still, two of the deployments were due to collision avoidance. Pilots had to turn so hard to avoid a collision that they would spin their gliders and end up with riser twists that they found un recoverable. Many people indicated that the riser twist problem seemed enhanced when flying with a fully enclosed, fully reclined race harness.

I understand that some politics played into the competition as usual, how about that?
The fact that I flew in the comp came to result in quite an e-mail firestorm. On the first, day of the competition, it became clear that Scotty Marion wasn't going to make it. The team met and it was clear that I should fly in order for us to have a complete team. I went there as team leader; I didn't even bring a glider, so, I bought one and the rest is history. It turns out that some people thought that we should have consulted with some other people before making the decision. I will likely give up my NTSS points so that everyone feels better about the result. Within the competition, there were numerous protests. Some against pilots who were turning against the set direction in the launch thermal. Others protested turnpoints set in potentially dangerous lee-side areas. Also, there were scoring issues; sometimes a backup GPS needed to be submitted, in Eric Reed's case, he was not scored on one task after the competition but had a score for that day during the comp. That has yet to be resolved.

On flying a competition glider, Josh Cohn told me "fly with ballast and don't take your hands off the brakes." Pilots had to be within the placarded weight of their gliders. They weighed pilots on launch and on landing. Additionally, pilots couldn't fly with more than thirty kilos in addition to their pilot weight. Interestingly, pilots preferred big gliders as long as they could be at the top of the weight range. It seems that since bigger gliders are inherently higher aspect ratio, they naturally perform better even when wing loading is the same proportionally (a pilot on a smaller glider compared to a pilot on a large glider). Many pilots were seen dumping ballast on the way to goal for whatever that's worth.

While they threatened to, they organization never did a drug test. Also, Bo Criss was a bit of a hero in that he landed in a really dangerous lee side area to help a pilot with a badly broken leg. The helicopters were a little bit slow, so he had to take care of the guy for almost three hours and then, had to hike down. Also, our team looked pretty smart. Josh flew really well and did great despite having to throw his reserve on the first day . I flew well despite my being slightly un-prepared and on a brand new comp glider and got a decent result. Bo Criss and Eric Reed were strong and smart and were rewarded with solid results and the rest of our team made really solid decisions and kept themselves safe . Of course our female team members did great. I am personally very proud of the team.

Doni Luca won on an Gradient Avax, he is an Italian, and is almost a unknown pilot. He was very consistent. Christian Tammeger got second. He has been a professional comp pilot for a long time and is very perceptive. A French pilot called Olivier Rossel was on his way to winning, when he flew too fast on the last day and landed short of goal(1/4mile) from goal. He ended up 3rd. Chris Muller from Canada was flying super, but mis-judged a final glide one day and ended up a little discouraged.

Any super memorable moments? I was gliding along side a Chinese girl who took a deflation and proceed to lose 5000 feet before throwing here reserve. The coolest task was when we went to the Coast of the Mediterranean I got to fly with Josh Cohn and Steve Ham on that one. We got to sixteen thousand feet before heading to the beach on a long glide.

What about gear?

The most popular harness was the Woody Valley X-Rated full body harness. The most popular instruments were the Flytec 4030 variometer and the Garmin GPS 12. The MLR was a very interesting GPS with longer battery life and the distinct advantage that it only switches to the next turnpoint(when en route) when you actually arrive at the turn point. The rest of the GPS' s units advance to the next before you actually arrive. The most popular glider was the Gin Boomerang with the Gradient Avax and UP Gambit next. The Windtech Silex was popular, showed good performance, but with very average results. The Lazer Jet Stream was the most popular helmet.

The organization?

Generally, there was a lack of organization. They were constantly behind schedule and the retrieval was not great. Still, we have to give them credit for undertaking to put on a World Championship event. Noel Whittal was the FAI examiner who did his best to try and keep things going smootly. There was only one big party, sponsored by Ozone. Some outrageous quantities of Vodka and Red Bull were consumed and the night ended in broken glasses , naked south Africans and one fight. The thirty minute drive to Granada for some night life, became a popular ritual.

Any other amusement?
We spent the three blown out days kite surfing and skateboarding. A lot of competition pilots are starting to travel with kite surfing gear. We ate more Paella(rice, seafood, saffron, spices etc.) than you can imagine. We ended up being a little envious of the most prepared teams like the French, Germans and Swiss who brought nurses, doctors, physical therapists, masseuses, drivers, chefs and alternate pilots; impressive! I don't know if you can call it amusement, but two days before the comp ended, while kitesurfing at the beach, our car was broken in to. My bag was stolen. Among the items that were stolen, were camera exposed film, clothing and my passport, (I had to bring it to cash a travelers check). In order to make the flight home to the US Nationals I drove all night (650km) to the US Embassy in Madrid to get a replacement. I slept an hour in the car, was first in line, and drove back to try and make the task.

Yes, luckily the task had been postponed till late due to weather. I droved straight to launch just as the pilot meeting was ending. With no sleep, two red bulls, 1300kms in Eric and Chad's very tired rental car and with a new passport, I made it. I got the turn point information from the team and, against all odds, I made goal.

When it was all said and done, how did the really good pilots distinguish themselves from the rest?
All told, it proved to be all about the decision making, not speed and glide etc. Basically, the good pilots were able to read, analyze and make decisions better. All of the gliders seem to perform about the same, the climbing and decision making happened faster for the most current pilots and for the most experienced pilots even if they hadn't been flying much.