Overview

In the debut episode of *The Paragliding Podcast by Cross Country Magazine*, editors Ed Ewing and Tarquin Cooper guide listeners through the November/December 2025 "Coupe Icare issue" of the magazine, blending celebration of the sport's achievements with sober reflection on its safety challenges. The conversation moves from the poetic remoteness of Scottish cross-country flying to the tragic death of Belgian pilot Bram Declercq at the World Championships in Brazil, and the subsequent reckoning within the sport's governing bodies. With the easy rapport of longtime colleagues, Ed and Tarquin balance gear enthusiasm, champion profiles, and a critical examination of whether paragliding's competition culture can change before more lives are lost.

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1:38Flying Scotland's Northwest Highlands: Remote Beauty and Hard-Won Kilometers

Ed Ewing opens by recounting his own recent flight in Scotland—a single perfect day under high pressure with zero wind, where low cloud nearly grounded him but eventually cleared to reveal "red heather looking out onto this just bright blue loch and then out to sea." This personal experience segues naturally into the issue's feature story by Joe Dart, a first-time contributor whose writing Ed describes as "absolutely from the heart" and "like a poet." Dart, it turns out, left school at 16 to become a tree surgeon and now works with wood carving; his father is a poet, but Joe insists he is not one—yet his prose captures the wildness of flying Scotland's Northwest Highlands, some of the most remote terrain in Western Europe.

The flight described in the story pushed almost as far northwest as possible in mainland Scotland, aiming to fly the entire length of the Northwest Highlands on an exceptional forecast. The stakes were high: if you land out there, Ed explains, you face "an eight hour walk out through bog and heather and midges." The photography accompanying the piece comes from Kieran Campbell, a Scottish landscape and paragliding photographer who also shot Ed's previous work in Krushevo. Ed notes that European guiding outfits are now bringing clients from Germany to Scotland, and he offers practical advice for visiting pilots: the best conditions come in April and May, after cold fronts sweep down from the north, bringing cool air streams, high cloud bases, and crystal-clear air. But he warns that the UK government's official forecast once gave a "chance of cloud-free hilltops less than 10%" on a day that turned out to be a blue-sky banger—the moral being that you must look up and do your own weather forecasting rather than trust the app.

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5:54Felix Wölk and the Lost Art of Paragliding Photography

Tarquin shifts the conversation to what he calls "the most exciting story in the whole magazine"—though he cheekily admits it's the masthead announcing his own full-time addition to Cross Country. More substantively, he highlights a photo gallery from Felix Wölk, the longtime Red Bull X-Alps photographer. For years, Wölk has been dispatched before each race to shoot hero images at turnpoints and mountain locations, using official wings and sponsored pilots. These images were once central to the event's media coverage, but Tarquin argues that the X-Alps has "lost a little bit of the heart and soul of the adventure by focusing so much on the churn of social media." The race now prioritizes live or near-live experience, with photographers and social media teams running around with smartphones, leaving less room for the kind of carefully composed, telephoto-lens imagery that captures "the soul and the adventure of what these people are doing."

Ed amplifies this point by describing the sheer difficulty of Wölk's work: he flies as a tandem passenger or coordinates with other pilots, often in difficult conditions, trying to communicate with subjects to position them perfectly. One memorable anecdote involves Wölk dropping his SD card in the Dolomites during the 2011 or 2013 X-Alps—and then landing and somehow finding it. The section closes with a quoted line from Wölk that Ed says captures his "cry from the heart": "We specialize in photographic focal lengths that reproduce images true to life. They fill the large gap that has arisen due to the widespread use of 360 action cams, which either fail in these cold regions or only bring back optically distorted wide angle shots." Tarquin likens this stance to "talking about vinyl"—a defense of a craft being displaced by convenience.

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10:55World Champions Baptiste Lambert and Constance Mettetal: The Potato and the Consistent

The cover stars of the issue are Baptiste Lambert and Constance Mettetal, the new French world champions, and Ed recounts his interview with Baptiste at Coupe Icare. Rather than floating around showing off his gold medal, Baptiste was working the Ozone stand, selling harnesses to the crowd, and could only spare time for an interview during his lunch break. Ed was struck by Baptiste's unconventional background: he was homeschooled by adventurous parents who traveled in a van and eventually settled on Réunion Island in the Indian Ocean, where the family was deeply into kitesurfing. Baptiste didn't enter competition until he returned to mainland France to study mathematics—but by then he had already spent ages 12 to 21 paragliding in Réunion, giving him a massive experiential head start.

The most revealing part of the interview came when Baptiste discussed his mental approach. After an earlier hand injury kept him from flying, he worked with a sports psychologist and learned breathing techniques, including "square breathing" (four in, hold four, out four, hold four) for calming himself, plus other techniques for "activating" himself when needed. His goal during competition is to become what he calls "a potato"—sitting under his glider, flying automatically and mathematically, making decisions logically rather than emotionally. Ed explains that an emotional decision might be feeling jostled in a gaggle and impulsively breaking away; a potato waits for the exact right moment. Constance Mettetal, interviewed by Charlie King, emphasized consistency as her great strength—at the European Championships in Spain the previous year, she won every women's task and ended up with eight or nine pairs of trainers as prizes from the sponsor.

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16:44Andrea Cechetto: The Young Paramotoring World Champion

The issue also profiles Andrea Cechetto, the new Italian paramotoring world champion, and Tarquin notes how remarkable it is that a world champion would knock on a journalist's door asking for a spare bed at Coupe Icare—"what other sport would you have a world champion knocking on the door of a journalist to say, can I sleep?" Andrea is just 21, unusually young for a paramotoring world champion, and he grew up around the sport: his father runs the paramotor brand Miniplane, and there are photos in the issue of Andrea as a toddler playing with paramotor gear. Ed admits he would be "very concerned having a toddler in the paramotoring environment," but Andrea has all his fingers and has been flying all his life. He also competes in paragliding, finishing in the top 20 at the SRS (a major competition), demonstrating that the best paramotor pilots are often strong paraglider pilots too. Tarquin's takeaway: "Start young."

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19:03The Death of Bram Declercq and the Reckoning in Competition Safety

The conversation turns somber as Ed and Tarquin address the tragedy that overshadowed the World Championships in Brazil. Bram Declercq collapsed and hit the ground while coming into land in the goal field on task six. He was helicoptered to hospital within the hour but died after a week. Ed explains that the aftermath was marked by a lack of communication from the organizers and from the CIVL (the Commission for Free Flight, the FAI's air sports commission that oversees international competitions). French pilots led a social media campaign demanding transparency and asking why the accident wasn't being communicated more widely—and, more fundamentally, calling for a conversation about safety.

Tarquin asks Ed whether this felt unprecedented, and Ed draws a historical parallel: a similar crisis occurred at the World Championships in Piedrahita, Colombia, about a decade ago, when the sport transitioned from open-class wings to two-line competition gliders. Pilots were still learning to fly the new wings, and there were two fatal accidents in a single day. The fallout led to the development of the CCC (Competition Class Certified) category, which produced safer wings. Even earlier, in the late 1990s, Rob Whittle—a hang gliding and paragliding world champion—led the campaign for a "serial class" where everyone competes on the equivalent of EN-C wings. So the current crisis, Ed argues, follows a pattern: a fatality, a period of outrage, and then incremental safety reforms.

What has happened in the eight weeks since Declercq's death? The FAI put a pause on Category 1 competitions, but Ed dismisses this as largely symbolic since the next Cat 1 event isn't until May. The PWC (Paragliding World Cup) announced a review of its safety ecosystem, and there is now a question mark over whether the PWC will go to India in February, because pilots are demanding a high level of medical care at competition sites. The CIVL appointed Violeta Jimenez from the USA as a pilot liaison officer to improve communication with pilots; she is also involved with a new pilots' union set up by Julian Garcia, the leader of the French team. Ed notes that when he speaks to the key figures—Julian, Pal, Frank Brown in Brazil, and Bill Hughes from the CIVL—everyone genuinely wants more safety. The challenge is that the CIVL and FAI are run by volunteers, and crisis communications protocols were nonexistent.

Ed himself attended the FAI General Conference in Helsinki, where he gave a talk on story communication in air sports. He argues that if you wait until a crisis to invent a protocol for handling it, you will fail—"communications is like accountancy or web design; you need to think about it before you do it." He also recounts a conversation with Bill Hughes, the CIVL president, who told him he had "done nothing but work full time on CIVL work since the accident." Ed pushes back against the attitude of some competition pilots who say they would accept dying for the sport, pointing out that it's not okay for "the people that have to pick you up," the person who packed your sandwiches, the bus driver, your teammates, your family. The key dates ahead: the PWC's decision on India, and the CIVL plenary in early March, where all the percolating ideas will be formally discussed and voted on.

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32:18Coupe Icare Gear Trends: EN-A Plus Wings, Parakites, and the Sublight Revolution

Returning to the festival atmosphere of Coupe Icare, Ed and Tarquin survey the equipment that caught their eyes. Ed highlights the Gin Bandit 2, a new lightweight EN-B wing that he finds exciting for mid-level pilots. But the bigger trend is in the EN-A category: many brands are releasing what Ed calls "EN-A Plus" wings—not school wings, but gliders with a bit more performance that a pilot can take straight out of school and fly for their first 100 hours while learning to thermal and fly cross-country. The benefit, Ed explains, is that these wings free up headspace: you don't have to worry about launch or landing, and you don't get overloaded by feedback from the glider. "As soon as you get too much feedback from the glider... you get overload and then you're not flying well and you're going to land earlier or do something silly." He notes that he has flown 100 kilometers on an EN-A in the UK flatlands.

Parakites—small, kite-like wings that bridge paragliding and kiting—are another major trend. Ozone is releasing not one but three parakites: a beginner's, an intermediate, and an advanced model. Crucially, they are also developing an "education package" of videos and curriculum, because the sport currently has no equivalent of the EN certification system for parakites. Ed explains the practical problems: kitesurfers are coming up from the beach and flying parakites without knowing the rules of the air—whether to turn left or right—and there is a new dimension of conflict because parakites can go up and down as well as left and right, which standard paraglider pilots aren't used to. "It's a real world practical problem if you're suddenly mixing up the aircraft and the disciplines."

The third gear trend is the "sublight" style harness—cut-down, X-Alps-inspired performance lightweight submarine-style harnesses. Baptiste Lambert, who works on harness design, told Ed that these are the future: they offer performance gains, warmth, and lightness, and manufacturers are working on making back protection more suitable for weekend pilots. Finally, Ed mentions the Gin light helmet, which weighs under 400 grams—a threshold he was always told meant a helmet wouldn't provide adequate protection. But this one is certified to the EN 966 standard for air sports, unlike the climbing helmets many hike-and-fly pilots currently use, which are designed for rockfall from above rather than side impacts.

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38:31Grant Crossingham: Lessons Between Hang Gliding and Paragliding

Tarquin shares an interview with Grant Crossingham, a ten-time British hang gliding champion who also flies paragliders. The interview explored what each discipline teaches the other. The key lesson Grant has taken from paragliding into hang gliding is about landing: paraglider pilots can land almost anywhere, which frees up mental bandwidth to focus on working lift. "If you're confident it's there, you can work it and work it and work it and keep persisting and pursuing it, and you'll get that lift." The takeaway for Tarquin is simple: "Just stay, not cut and run too soon. Keep trying." He suggests that should be the motto of the sport.

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43:34Looking Ahead: The Adventure Issue

The episode closes with a teaser for the next issue, the "adventure issue" coming in December, which will be packed with travel inspiration for the year ahead: a week in the Canaries, bike-and-fly backyard adventures, heli-paragliding around Mount Kenya in northern Kenya, tow launching in Finland, and hike-and-fly in the Alps. Tarquin also mentions an interview with David Sasadelli, a Red Bull X-Alps pilot known for a famous launch video, which will appear in the upcoming issue.

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Conclusion

This debut episode succeeds because it captures paragliding at a crossroads. The joy of the sport—the poetry of a Scottish flight, the ingenuity of a new harness design, the discipline of a world champion who trains himself to be a "potato"—is never far from the surface. But the shadow of Bram Declercq's death and the systemic failures that followed gives the conversation a gravity that elevates it beyond gear talk. Ed and Tarquin don't pretend to have solutions, but they do something perhaps more valuable: they map the terrain, name the players, and remind listeners that the sport's future depends on volunteers, honest communication, and a willingness to learn from the past. For anyone who cares about where paragliding is headed, this episode is essential listening.

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Key takeaways

• Joe Dart's feature on flying Scotland's Northwest Highlands captures some of the most remote terrain in Western Europe, where a landing can mean an eight-hour walk out through bog and heather.
• Felix Wölk's photography for Red Bull X-Alps represents a "lost art" of composed, telephoto-lens imagery that is being displaced by 360 action cams and social media immediacy.
• New world champion Baptiste Lambert uses sports psychology techniques including square breathing and the "potato" mindset to eliminate emotional decision-making during competition.
• The death of Bram Declercq at the World Championships in Brazil triggered a safety reckoning, with French pilots leading calls for transparency and reform—a pattern that echoes the Piedrahita fatalities a decade ago.
• The FAI paused Category 1 competitions until May 2026, but critics see this as symbolic; the real test will be the PWC's decision on India in February and the CIVL plenary in March.
• EN-A Plus wings are a growing category, offering new pilots enough performance for 100-kilometer cross-country flights while keeping headspace free for learning.
• Parakites are booming but lack certification and a shared curriculum, creating safety risks as kitesurfers enter airspace without knowing paragliding rules of the road.