With the choroid you can see what's happened and then the
people can talk about it. But what I know from origami is
it will come back to the original shape.
It means it's like sponge, like air.
It's elastic. So you have a reborn.
I don't really understand how it can absorb the energy like the
choroid is doing. The second thing is Origamis and
this kind of brands to big manufacturers and these big
manufacturers are producing from many small brands generally.
Thank you for coming, Eric. I've been wanting to get in
touch with you or somebody from your team for a while to get an
idea about Fly Neo Atalier. Explain to our audiences about
Fly New Atalier. What is Fly Neo and Atalier?
Sounds like a really fancy name. How did you choose the name and
what is your brand all about? The name is Neil.
It's not Neil Atalier. It's just a matter of URL and
and ID for Internet. But the name of the brand is
just Neil. We put Atalier just to say that
we are not a huge ASEAN workshop.
We are sort of people working like a small Atalier.
We also actually because we are designing everything and we are
producing everything in our workshop in France.
Neo Neo came from the idea that trends are not only barglading
in most of the outdoor sports, trends are creating designs,
colours, functions and they send everything to Asia, were real
designers while making the patterns they produce there and
they import and sell them in Europe.
They consider that the big brands are more like marketing
people or design people, which are really good to sell the
products, but they don't know how to make with their own hand,
like a Craftsman and they always only design.
We produce in France, we even ship and we make the
certification. Everything is made inside the
same building right now where we have certain people working and
we are in the middle of one of the biggest playing sites in the
world, in Nancy, where we live, where we practice.
This was the main idea of Neo. We call it Neo because the main
trend now for all sports outdoor is to go to Asia and import with
consequences for the planet. If you know the film Matrix, Neo
is trying to be out of the trend.
So we call it Neo to be out of the trend.
And the second reason the name Neo is because it's the last
letter of the Barber alphabet. This letter is the logo of Neo
and means Freeman. This is the reason why we call
the brand Neo, because we do things in the industry.
Thanks for explaining it so well.
I think this gives our audience an idea about much more than
tomato and website. It's brave to come across as a
brand based on Europe and China is a status quo.
We're going to try and do our manufacturing here and compete
with all the big ones who have a fully structured assembly line
and the material production outsource to a much cheaper
labour market. Where to go, Eric?
More power. It's a part of the main strategy
of NAO because if you compare to Vietnam, for example, most of
the backpacks on the outdoor sports market produced mainly in
Vietnam. The difference cost of salary
all charge including between France, Vietnam are between six
time to 12/12 time more expensive.
In France. If we want to pay our sewing
lady, we have to put high quality products, high quality
materials, a lot of innovation to be able to sell 30 to 50%
more expensive our products. It's like the luxurious product
industry, the need to sell really expensive and put the
best of their knowledge in their product to justify higher price
to pay the salary. So we are in the same situation.
For me, it's ethic to produce the product where we practice
the most activity. Doesn't mean that we don't
export to USA or Japan, but most of our market is Germany, France
and Switzerland. It's important for me to be
local. The objective is not to have a
huge factory. We, we, we are 30 people now,
perhaps we 35 or 40. I don't want to grow in numbers,
I want to grow in quality and excellence of the products.
This is the main philosophy of the brand, to be able to sell
more expensive to pay correctly our employee.
That's wonderful to hear that that capitalism is not the
driving force behind this. And I think what what what makes
me curious is that you guys have been in the industry for quite a
while, maybe 10 years or more. And they all were 12 years ago,
the first harness called the string, the mountain harness
since 35 years. I start, I was 17.
It means bag lading industry for yeah, more than 30 years.
I start, I was 19 years old as a trainee.
I went to Korea and I was Edel, that's the biggest manufacturer
in the five months and this and I met who was very important in
my life. We tried to work together in
9/19/91. I work for ITV local brand in
Nancy. Then I joined the Gene when he
created Gene Gliders in 1998. I was always working in the
manufacturing of paragliding Adele, ITV Gene leiders.
They all were producing local because Gene is Korean in Asia,
so he was producing in Asia ITV and was producing in France, so
it was local in the 90s. I continue to create my own
brand to be also local manufacturer.
Have you found it challenging to meet the price bracket or
satisfy the order books just when it comes to numbers?
Because economies of scale is a big thing in in the industry.
And of course, if you produce in a larger number in a place where
it's a lot more cheaper, if you can justify the balance books or
investment into your project. At times, sticking to these
principles for any manufacturer out there doesn't make sense for
people to choose this part because of the value it adds to
your life other than money. Or have you faced this question
that I I could have just gone mainstream and tried to compete
on the rules that everybody else plays with rather than set my
own? It's a silence.
We have to design our products in a way that we will produce
them in France. We consider distribution
marketing to be able to be competitive.
It's a real big challenge. At the beginning we were doing
harness and wings for speed riding.
Now we are also doing backpacks for mountaineering, climbing,
skiing and all the sports. We're practicing ourself.
The easier way would be to go as yard to produce.
I created a factory in 2001 in China, so I was managing a
production. It was not difficult for me to
have the right contact, but I want to challenge myself, to
challenge ourselves and you can do something special.
My objective was not to be the biggest manufacturer in the
world. I'm not able to do that.
My objective was not to have a huge company.
I don't need much money. I just want to live and make my
family living and my employee and family of my employee living
out of that by doing something also I'm not doing.
It's real challenge because every year it's hard to survive.
We invest a lot and went step by step.
I'm not coming from a rich family.
Every year we have to buy a new machine.
It was a lot of investment. Now we have around 40 sewing
machine in the company. We have a laser cutting machine,
machine to cut the webbings, many different process to cut
fabrics and step by step we build that within the last 12
years and now we start to be a little comfortable.
We were rating a small workshop. We made our own workshop five
years ago. Last year we increased the size
of the workshop double. Now we have a workshop with
Chisa 1001 thousand square metre every month, every week.
It's a fight to survive. Because in France we have more
tax, more social charge, more expenses on you.
I have a chance to have a wife who really understand my
passion. Because sometimes some people
tell me why you don't go produce in Asia and have much more
money. Life is more the challenge than
to give money. What a way to put it across.
It's heartening to see a brand like this come out and set their
own rules and stick to that. But just out of curiosity, Eric,
I, I want to touch upon manufacturing paragliding.
Manufacturing is distributed. It's not strength centralized.
In Europe, you have sky paragliders who make their own
thing and you have aerodynamics in Sri Lanka.
So there are multiple factories, different places.
Then you see people like you doing your own thing here,
Gabriel from Vintech and and Spain.
So there are European based small factories and then there
are Asia based big factories. What basically goes behind in
trying to have a business like the start out search for
investors like every other big business does?
Or is it more or less like a small group of friends coming
together and saying, hey, we have the expertise and we're
going to pull in our money and and get it done.
How does the behind the scenes look for the audience?
Freaking enough way of manufacturing the world.
The first one is big manufacturers who'd have their
own brand. You have a lot of brands on the
market, marketing people, designers with compute in their
office and there's a certification but don't produce.
Sometimes they even don't know how to put the thread inside the
needle. And this kind of brand to big
manufacturers in Sri Lanka, in China.
And these big manufacturers are producing from many small
brands. Generally, if you want to become
a major brand in the paragliding market, brands gagging leaders
like Skywalk, Ozone, they have their own production facilities
in Asia. Producing in your factory, you
cannot be a major brand on the market because you need to
control the quality. It's super important quality and
safety of the products. And to be able to make
innovation, you need to make your own investments in your
machine, in your people, to train your people and you need
to have your own production. The sub category is brand like
me. We also consider small brands
who try to do high quality and to make a lot of innovation,
making local production and try to succeed with that.
We don't have to mix people who have their own production
difference and brands who are working with the supplier.
For me, it was just the beginning.
I was experiencing the paragliding market and I was
distributor for Gene in France. And then I put all the small
money I had to produce a first harness.
I went 1010 to climb and I was with a friend and this friend he
was using climbing harness. You cannot open the harness.
You have to put it like a pant and when you are out there it's
very difficult to wear. I was using a Black Diamond
bolder harness for climbing. You can close it and then you
have the straps, you can close them with power gliding and as I
create the string harness which the leg strap you can close
directly in the Caribbeaner. Then after many brands called
this concept, I start to sell it for my friend and they say why
you don't create your brand? And then the idea to make made
in France products came because there was a lot of unemployment
in France. Yours and I consider that there
were a lot of shoeing lady. They were selling clothing in
the shops. They didn't have possibility to
use their knowledge. I decide to create the company.
I didn't get much money. We went step by step to now sort
of people. Some friends came with a little
bit of money to help me or IT, but we never add huge investor
in the company. Wow, That's what passion
projects are about. You have the motivation and the
universe figures out a way to people of your honesty.
Eric, does it take to to start a brand?
Do you have a certain bit of orders for, for the wings that
you can say, all right, I'm selling 10 wings or 20 wings a
year so I can go to this factory and say take my money, take my
design and give me the raw material?
Or do you start with whatever you have, especially in your
case and or do you go with big brands or big investors?
If somebody wants to get into this business, what is the way
for them to get started in this direction?
The first thing is to fly and love to fly.
If you want to do products in bag lading, you need to fly and
to love to fly. You have a friend who has a ski
factory just 200m from my factory and he's an Olympic
champion of skiing. He likes to ski and makes his
own ski. No, I'm not the world champion,
I'm paragliding, but I fly since a long time and my passion.
So you need to have ideas to create a good sensibility in the
air. I learn this Gene misses
sensitive in the air to be able to trim around us correctly.
We have a few friends and sewing machines start.
Another possibility is some brands explore around them.
They find money start with a big investment in marketing and and
designing. If the success for the at the
beginning generally is it to a big factory in Asia.
If there's a success, they need to make their own factory if
they want to be a major brand. It depends on what you want in
life. So the first thing is to have
the passion for playing. This is the most important.
There's a lot of people who came in the paragliding to for ego or
because they thought it will be a big business.
It's not a big business if you don't have the passion for
flying it's. Different, Why do some brands
fail after a period of time because I've seen that this is a
very niche market where you are trying to target some very
selected limited amount of people.
But some brands like NL, as you said, Asif has the market, has
the cash flow, has the product line already done, just
vanishes, goes out and some other brands as let's say Axles
was pretty big, few other, I cannot keep on taking names.
But a lot of times see that brands have their upward curve
like when the main owner who's really passionate about it and
the brand has received very well and then it starts going down.
Is it because these businesses are passion based and not run in
a professional business way? What exactly is the reason why
we see brands coming and going and very few actually stay for
long? Because like I said, it's mainly
based on the passion compared to other business.
When it's not based on passion, you can sell it and find
professional people to continue the story.
But in the world, are you mainly a human process with someone man
of several months, be it sometimes they can be or they
can be less innovative. It's life.
We are not always at the top, the world champion, not the
world champion for 30 years. The most difficult for a top
leader brand is not to become the first one on the market to
stay here. And behind the paragliding
brands you have some very important men who are there.
There are few I would say I know very well is Gino.
Gene is a fantastic designer. He's a fantastic person.
He was at the top and he's still in the main brand, but he was a
number one in two states. Super difficult because
competitors try to gain in paragliding it.
It's a matter of passion and there's not a lot of people in
the world who are passionate for paragliding.
So you need to to find that and probably the people who have the
passion. I know that Gene is not the best
guy in business. He's a super designer, but he's
not the best guy in business. So it's difficult to be stable.
And the second reason is probably the people in
paragliding think too much about the product.
They always say, ah, I'd launch A2 liners ENC or if I launch
this armors or if I launch that, make sure we'll be good.
So they think a lot about the product and they don't think
enough about the brand. And the best example and
probably one of the best success in the paragliding market is
Advance, Advance Launcher ENC. And Advance is the most stable
brand in the last 20 years, 20 years in the industry because
there is a value of the brand. It's a matter of business and
vision. You are for your company.
We have people who are creative, passionate, paragliding.
It's a wonderful story. We were born one another years
ago. We fly it's magic.
We are super lucky. These people have a passion.
I met a lot of designers in in my paragliding life 20 years ago
and then they all have passion. Probably less business way and
the guy who have a good business way, they have less passion.
So it's not the business where you will earn the most money.
I think that's. Would say life is like this
finally. This is one thing that I've
commonly seen with a lot of creative people, let's say
artisians, musicians, a lot of them who are trying to put their
heart and soul into what they're making are least bothered in
trying to have a structured marketing plan or coming up with
a commercial game where they can make money out of it.
But what I was wondering is, Eric, when a new consumer, let's
say somebody who's getting into or somebody who has been in
there for a few years to know the brands and all their
technologies and everything behind it.
Investing money is not easy because paragliding isn't the
cheapest. It requires you to come out with
at least two 3000 minimum if you want to own a pre owned kit or
at least four 5000 minimum if you want a good brand new
performance level. Choosing a brand is a personal
choice. Do you have any idea how people
can prioritize choosing their brands?
Legacy factor helps, but that legacy is built history.
Seeing the early decline of a brand will not be that visible.
Let's say if a brand has been innovative for 20 years and it's
not innovating anymore for the past five years, you still can
go out and give your money and invest in something that is not
as meaningful when it comes to decision making as a customer.
What should people really look out for to spend their hard
earned money in the most efficient manner in this
industry? I think the powergliding is
expensive. If you fly with a plane it's
more expensive. There's other sports who are
more expensive than the park lading.
Finally, ski is also expensive. If you don't go ski touring and
you to buy your ski pass every day, it's also expensive.
But park lading is expensive. I would advise begin don't
choose the cheapest brand because if they are cheapest
reason with the highest brand with the highest price you have
a second end market. For example, if you take our pod
harness for lightweight harness, it it's asset Max Pinot and Tim
Elongi were using in the last red bulletin Subs.
This harness is one of the most expensive light pod harness.
But after three or four years using it, you can still sell it
900 or €1000 on the second hand market easily.
It means harness is cost €2000 at the beginning, but after
three or four years, you can still sell it at 50 percent, 60%
discount of the price. But if you take harness which is
very fragile with a cheap brand, it will go to rubbish.
So in fact the money you invest, you will lose everything.
So perhaps you will buy it 1500 or 1300.
But finally, you cannot resell it with I brands with you can
sell it second. And so it's sometimes better to
buy brand than to buy new and cheap brand which should not be
able to sell. This is the first thing.
The second thing is go to professional dealers and tell
them I want to fly this harness, I want to fly this wing and feel
and if you feel good with your wing harness then you can buy
it. Try equipments, try different
things and speak with other people.
Be careful with the forums as bullshit forum but go to
professional people instructors, discuss with them and see on the
landing some guys using harness or wings you would like to fly
and test yourself. Even beginners can test
themselves. They can test beginner wings and
say I prefer this one. If you are sensitive, try to see
who is behind the company, how the company is producing, is
there other their own factory and try to understand understand
that. But don't go the cheapest way,
that's for sure. Especially with rescue parachute
harness. And for example, I'm designer of
harness. You can see that if you fly with
different kind of harness, you will use a lot of different
stability, different geometry. Harness is not only a fairing
you, it's a geometry, comfort, stability and performance.
So when you go to try few different brands of harness, you
will see that sometimes you can have a unstable harness which is
not able to turn nicely and you can have stable harness which
are able to turn very nicely. So try and test your gear.
You want to buy it. Love the way you put it.
This is pure gold. Anybody who wants to re listen
to what they said, just hit the rewind button on Spotify or
wherever you get your podcast. This was pure magic.
Or advice on how to buy it. But Eric, you mentioned not to
buy a substandard reserve parachute, let's say round
Reserve or Rogallos. They have very standard design
that has stayed the same for years and they don't really
require any specific expertise in sewing them together or any
special materials. So why can't you go in for the
cheapest reserve like somebody who was?
Merging economies of scale, buying the raw material in in a
lot more quantity and has set guidelines and a set standard
for manufacturing. Where will that make a
difference? I got to talk with SIV
instructors. They will tell you that there
are some rescue which are really good and some rescue which are
really bad. It's not a matter of
manufacturing, it's also a matter of design.
There was apex geometry rescue in the past and now we have
square or planar rescue. It's a matter of who will be the
lightest, what will be the area, what will be the weight range,
What is the main objective of a rescue?
Opening time. It's in crate stability, how you
connect it to the harness, the mirror effect, the position.
When you learn there's a lot of about that rescue is not only a
rescue, it's also harness. Some rescue are really good and
some rescue are not good. But I see the market and I, when
I discuss instructors with dealers and other most famous
brand, not only the biggest, most famous brand generally have
the best rescue. I don't really trust you.
You can go to some factory and buy a rescue and put your
sticker on it, your logo on it. But I don't really trust that.
I prefer to go to manufacturer and develop his own way.
Because designing a product is not only to say I design and
sell it, it's also what I want to do with a product.
We'll use my my product, which way we'll use it, where does it
fly, all these things. And I prefer to go to a
manufacturer who say we did this product in this way than to go
to a manufacturer or buy your rescue which is already
designed. Let's take Rogallo right?
1970s That does not change. So if you are supposed to
manufacture it according to certain guidelines, this should
be the span length, this is how the riser should look, this is
how strong the lion should be. Can you still have different
characteristics based on what you have manufactured in a
different factory? Or are all different brand name?
On top of that, when the design is so standardized, how can the
quality be different? The market is changing. 20 years
ago we were flying with rescue, which were free.
Now we are flying with rescue which are between to one point
5K or 2K. To get this result, we need to
change materials. For example, we were using
polyester lines for a long time. Now we are using Dynamo lines
most of the time. The fabric need to be seen on it
lighter. The lock desk is still the same
in the last year certification. You will use different
materials. It's like a bar glider.
You don't take a standard design and just change the material.
When you change the matter, you have to adapt the design.
This is the first thing. I'm not specialist with Roger
who prefer square rescue or long rescue.
Even on the square rescue, you can have different patterns,
shapes, trim, trim your apex lines.
You can afford it in a different way.
Small trimming makes the tension in the panels different lines,
many things. A good R&D team, a good
designer, several designers, good test pilot and enough money
and power to develop that. This is a brand like Neo and we
are not doing rescue and we are not doing wings first.
It will not be profitable to produce in France.
We are just doing rucksack and harness and it's a huge work of
development. We are five people in R&D and
Neo. It's a big investment of
development. Some brands pick one rescue, one
manufacturer, one wing, one harness.
They don't do specific design work.
They just change colour of the pocket here and the PC stem
here. But generally is a concept is
not water pipe pocket and PC stem.
It's design aerodynamic. It's a basement with geometry.
It's it's a base harness for comfort weddings and buckles to
be strong enough. This is a basement of and like I
tell you since the beginning of of this conversation, generally
you need R&D to make a real and even in rescue, it's not
completely stand out. Even I'm not specialist with
Rogelo, but I think Rogelo is not completely stand out.
When you come from a normal Rogelo fabric rescue to a light
1, you need to adapt things. It's.
Very interesting, I love the way you explain it.
We should emphasize choosing gear rather than just sticking
with marketing while while talking about products.
Eric, I see Neo's inventory has grown a lot.
I've followed your website for a few years.
You were heavily into speed riding wings in the beginning.
Now when I look at your product range, you have diversification
harnesses, backpacks, protectors and accessories.
How did you decide to diversify? What was the decision making
like when you started to introduce more innovation and
production in your inventory? What was the thought process
behind that? It looks like we diversify, but
in fact we didn't diversify. It's very simple.
We are craft banner, so we use our hands and our machine to
make products. Our speciality is to produce
with thin fabric, OK and very thick part of lading harness.
You need to sew very thick weddings and materials.
This is our speciality. When we make harness and
backpacks, you need to be able to sew thin antique.
We specialize this way. We are the only workshop in
France able to do that, so we just decide to not to make
paragliders or rescue parachute because it's not where we are
the best. We didn't diversify so much.
We came back to do what we are the best and what we are able to
do with our machine on our hands.
I'm curious about the helmet part because we have a topic
with the Icaro 2000 Christian, the Hang Gliding legend talk
about helmet manufacturing, designing, certification.
You are one of the few brands which have diversified into
making their own helmet. How did that come into the
picture and what was that journey?
If you can briefly talk about that before I move on to other
technologies. This is the only product we
don't manufacture ourselves, only product of the new range.
We don't manufacture in France. Technically it's difficult to
find in from the manufacturer able to do such hardness.
We found a really good manufacturer, very technical one
where we have a good relationship and we can work.
My experience is good in textile manufacturing and backpacks.
I'm not the specialist of helmets.
There was a lack of on the market of a good helmet.
There was a lot of brands coming in and out of the market.
Was difficult for the dealer to have something stable.
So we just decide to make one helmet for paragliding and also
certified for ski climbing and ski touring in partnership with
this manufacturer ABS shell to be strong.
We didn't find the right manufacturer, so we found a part
technical partner able to do it. We worked two years on the
development and now sell it. We have a few projects
paragliding in Mets. In the future it will be one
more than more. But we are not becoming a
paragliding manufacturer and I will not install in France
factory for manufacturing because I'm not specialist.
Love your take on that. Nice to see somebody saying
money is not a prior but adding value to our brand and people's
is talking about collaborations. One thing I'm sure not just me,
but a lot of people in community have been curious about is
Korean man, because I was reading on your web page that
you and Korean go way back. You've been working with them
since 2014. You've gone back and forth about
this revolutionary new technology that was adapted with
gin and a few other brands. Let's talk about Korea and you
and this protector, which is promising but questioned in the
industry. Well, when I start my brain off
harness, I was thinking about protection.
The protection is not difficult to engineer to manufacture in
France, but not easy because of labour cost.
Then I was starting to think about something inflatable
differencing. One guy, very important in Neo,
came in the company. He was 20 years old and it was
Matthias who is still working with me.
He's the chief of production in Neo and the designer with me in
the company. Matthias came with this idea.
He was training in sport product development school.
He came and told me, yeah, look, there's a Coroid and why not go
to them. So with Matthias, we went to see
Coroid. They were interesting about our
and about our position. We were already innovating in
terms of geometry of harness and in the paragliding speed riding.
They said, yeah, we don't want to work with the biggest brand,
but we want to work with a brand which is close and innovating
and has a good image. Then they start to work with us.
We made the exclusive contract for world wide paragliding
market. It took three years to launch
the first Colloid protection. It's a lot of time.
I just became employee of the company and now he's managing
the company with me. Step by step we develop new
generation and next month we will launch a new generation of
Colloid which is more flexible with a sponge and round shape to
fit the new aerodynamic harness. What was interesting for
Mattress and me at the beginning is the way that corrid absorb
the impact. All the protection we had the
long time bag lading, moose airbag or the rebound.
The energy goes back to your when you crash like in the car,
the structure deform and absorb by the noise, heat and
destruction of the material. Then the energy is not a
rebound, it was material which are elasticity.
The mousse is elastic, the air is elastic, the plastic or 3D
printing things are elastic, the polymer tube which crash and
this the energy out. And it was the main thing which
was really interesting. It was interesting because it's
more safe pearlite and it's more compact, only 7 or 8 centimeter.
So this is how we start to work with Korea.
We have engineers and we start to work in collaboration.
I like is they are big company, I hope, but they still continue
to be faithful to us and we still continue to innovate and
it's a really nice. I want to talk a little bit
about the working of Korea because a few crashes, I'm
pretty sure a lot of people have seen them in parallel lighting.
You've seen the blocks of Korea protector that the green blocks
twisted upon impact. What causes them to switch away
from their place and stay rigid and not really have the crash
being fully taken care of or fully absorbed?
How does that, let's say you look at a projector in courtyard
where these blocks are included with foam or some material to
keep them in place upon impact. We have seen the through some
photographs which are being shared online that the blocks
twist out of place instead of crumpling.
I'm just wondering what was that all about?
Has that been solved? How is that being looked at from
a manufacturer's perspective? The main thing is the first
thing we thought when we development is to full to put a
full block of choroider, but it was not good in terms of impact
to have a good absorption of impact with a big you should 78
impact, it's much choroid. In fact you crush only 10 or
20%. So absorption of impact wasn't
enough. We decided to go with blocks of
choroider. But you are right, we need to
keep the colloid vertical as much as we can when we crash.
Which was a long test. 3 hours of test to find the right
mousse, sponge material and shade to fit the certification.
When you crash, the colloid doesn't twist to the side, then
then there's still absorption of impact, but it will not be in
unit to find the right balance between the colloid and the
sponge. If you have too much sponge,
it's not necessary. It was a big deal to find the
best way step by step. Each time we change the
percentage of corridor protection depends.
It's a long or short protection. We understand more about the
corridor and we found that to put a round shape under the
protection gives a better result if you don't crash exactly
vertical if you. Crowded.
On the side, step by step, we are improving this this
technology. I'm just curious that did wasn't
like in the beginning, let's say this happens with any new
technology, right? When you come up with a new
technology, it has its own laboratory applications where
you learn some dynamics of it and then it has its own real
world applications where it's a whole different product.
So so was there, I mean, there was a time in parallel lighting
community when Corey had was just, you know, being questioned
for not absorbing side impacts. Well, and where the blocks of
Corey had were twisting and making them.
I wouldn't say more dangerous, but at least they were not
serving the purpose upon in crashes.
Has Korea Technologies reached a point where it is absorbing
impact from all directions or is the R&D still going on where
foam and other technologies are still more reliable?
Impact on the parallel lighting harness is not only about
choroid. We cannot put choroid or mousse
or air all around us. There's a limitation of angle of
attack. There's a way to limit it.
The problem with the choroid is you can see what's happened when
you crash. All is the other protection you
cannot see. You don't know what's happened
when you crash. Most of the time the the airbag
is going away and it's not efficient at all, but you cannot
see it with your eyes after. With a moose you cannot see if
the moose was good or not. With an airbag you cannot see,
but with the corrid you can see what's happened and then the
people can talk about it. But with the other protection,
they don't talk because there's no problem.
Some people will say it's easy for Eric to say that like this,
but since we start to talk 30 minutes ago or 40 minutes ago,
I'm transparent. I'm not a guy who is telling
bullshit. It's just the fact that the
people can talk because they can see.
We had some guys who said my parade didn't work because it's
not crashed, and then we received some video and the guy
didn't follow the parade, he followed his feet.
Makes sense, but. If he were falling with the
moose. What's the most?
With the sponge, with the. Sponge.
Sponge, Yeah. Foam protector.
If he was falling, he cannot see because it will stay same
effects except if you have a huge impact on it with but with
the Corey, they say my Corey didn't crash, so it didn't work.
It didn't fall on the Corey. Some say I didn't follow, it
didn't work. You fall too much on the side,
but another protector will not protect you.
It's not a problem of technology or safety.
It's a problem of perception of the people on the courage.
They are able to say it's working a lot, but on an airbag
or another protector. I'm just curious when it comes
to twisting of the blocks, does that have any explanation?
Like why do blocks get out of their place and get twisted in
the form where they were? And like, how did that happen
and how are you guys? Fixed.
We improved a lot of this problem and now so on the big
protection we will put a moose and our sponge very soft, which
will help also to avoid the twisting.
For sure. The twisting is if you are
really on the side, but it will be same with whatever protection
all the the mass of air or the mass of sponge or whatever will
slide away. We made the the harness to the
yen certification 50K, one over 63 centimeter falling down with
a certain speed. And what we say to the people is
when you see that the sponge around your colloids is starting
to be broken after impact, you need to change your protection
like your helmet when you fall in ski or whatever.
It's in principle, but we try to improve that.
But generally what we receive the the when the people crash,
when the senders bags are colloid, most of the time
there's a part which is crashed times 1 of the persons,
sometimes 80%, but there's always a part which is crash.
So it's just like helmet, you have to try and make it.
But when I see that you guys are fusing materials, bringing in
new technology and embracing it with the older one and trying to
make it a bit more so solid protection, I want to talk about
this brand new protector that Neva launched because this just
came into my curiosity. Their designers were on the show
as well, and they talked about Origami.
Origami and Coriode seem similar.
Lightweight impact protection, streamlined reducing drag, red
corrodes impact protection and Origami's flexibility.
Are we looking at combining these technologies or do you see
these both revolutionarized technologies working together in
time to come? We tried some years ago to
develop something like origami and how we can all see different
corrode. It looks same but it's
different. We tried 3D printing and the
first thing is Orikami doesn't crash.
Orikami is elastic when you crash like I explained before.
What I know from origami is it will come back to the original
shape. It means it's like sponge like
air. It's elastic so you have a
ribbon. I don't really understand how it
can absorb the energy like the choroid is doing.
The second thing is Orikami is almost double weight than the
choroid for the same thickness of of protection or choroid will
be 3:00 to 2:00 to 400 grams and it will be 800 grams.
It's quite difficult to to to compare.
For me it's different concept and the way choroid is working,
it's because it's crashing and that's simple important.
The similar way is that in terms of sickness, for sure we are
reducing the sickness and we are reducing the drug.
This is something we we are doing since neo, since a long
time. And This is why gene ladders use
it for January 4, genealase 5. This is why also ozone is using
it for the submarine. This is why also accounts were
using it for the pilots of exalts.
It was to reduce the drag because it's good to put a good
long fairing, but if you reduce the drag, it's also better.
This is between Oikami and Korean for sure.
Same result in terms of impact, we have better impact because we
are around between 30 without rescue with between 303132 G 35
maximum but they are more close to 45 or 50.
So I am not getting nothing against Arikami, but you asked
me the questions and I. No, I love your honesty, Eric,
And please don't feel sorry to speak the truth, man.
Like the, the, the industry and the audience loves listening to
people like you. So yeah, as I said in the
beginning of the show, more power to you.
Love, love the way you you break out these things.
As we're reaching the end of the show, I want to touch upon
reducing drag before we run out of time here.
When you go all these time while we have seen that arrived pro
prone position is I don't know. I don't know if it's called
prone position, but lying down position is better than sitting
position and harnesses. And we try to make as much drug
reduction as possible. But then I see something as big
as submarine coming into the market and completely taking
away keeping things smaller and thinner because submarine is a
whole big casing around it and the size of the harness is
substantially larger than any other harness that we have seen
in the market. Let's say XR7 or Genie Race 5 or
4, maybe whatever it was like the pod harnesses that were
existing even from French manufacturers, even from all the
big ones. We're all about very thin single
structure board harness with the fairing.
But submarine comes in and designs a whole inflatable
structure which is bigger in surface area.
So when we have surface area and not being a problem for drag,
why can't we add bigger ticker protectors around us in these
harnesses that we are starting to fly now to make it even more
safer? Like why is the thinking or the
R&D not going in that direction? Just a problem of IO dynamics as
we developed this in this way, basically Ozone did a wonderful
job. The first thing is to find the
best AOD and then on the second thing, they separate the body of
the harness with the out shell. And most of the time you have
the perfect shape of the harness and you gain a lot of stability
and not much wrinkles. If you have a good way to manage
EU axis, it's improving even EU axis and all the way in
transition in term of performance.
And then as they choose the best shape and to choose the best
shape you need to be really with a small segment of aerodynamic
segment which is facing the wing should be the smallest one.
This is why you need such a material like corrode to be
smaller and then as it just choose the shape which is the
best. Flexibility of the fairing is
that you're saying? Yes, how do you call like a
boat? The rudder.
The rudder stable. Which we did on our prototype.
It's a wonderful concept. A paraglider is a wing a lines
and the body with arms, head and armus.
If you put bigger protection, you increase the size of the
circle around the pilot, the front surface area of the wing
and lose the aerodynamic effect because you will need to have a
longer harness. And then it's practical anymore.
And we are not sail plane, we are still paraglider on the
backpack. You need to have protection.
And I think the problem is not, I think there's a a compared to
a fairing on harness, the gain of performance is huge.
There's a huge difference fairing normal harness to
fairing. There's a gap, the gap is small
compared to the gap with harness like submarine.
So I think the problem is now, I remember 20 years ago when we
start to have pod harness, except Richard Gallo in the 90s,
but when we start to have pod harness, the pilot, it's only
for competition. It will never go, It's
dangerous. It's like when we start to fly
alcohol in the 90s Everybody, some people say it's dangerous,
it will kill the sport. This is the wrong way to think.
All innovation can be interesting.
We have to be open and ALCO helps the safety in paragliding.
In fact, people thinking it's too dangerous, it will kill the
sport. No, ALCO was helping the safety
and I'm working every day with Tim Alangi, the best pilot.
I was nicest style. The best style and team is a
wonderful pilot and help us everyday to to improve the
quality of the safety of our products.
So we don't have to go against the revolution.
And this kind of inflatable harness.
Probably it's our job designer. It's the work of engineers who
are working on that to learn about it.
And step by step, perhaps it will come to the normal pilots
or perhaps not, it will stay only to the best pilots.
But the problem is, if now we say we increase the size of the
protector for what to gain more protection, or if you increase
the size of the choroid, you will not gain more protection.
You will lose the efficiency of the back protector.
If you put a 20 centimeter back protector, you will not have a
better result than 8 or 9 or 7 centimeter.
Like I said, you need to crash 80% to have the best result.
If with a 20%, you will not crash the percent.
So first you don't gain safety, OK, of course you can put
inflatable, but inflatable to to reach the certification you need
to be 22 centimeter. Then you will need to increase
the circle around the pilot and then the pilot will have the
harness here at the top of the head.
No, you need the harness not so high.
You cannot increase the safe to increase safety and it will not
be useful. You need something easy to use,
which is practical, not too hot, not you spend 20 minutes to
install it. And this is a job of our job
designers to be able to propose a product in the future to the
public, which will be good to fly with safety.
For the moment, suddenly top pilots and for the moment, in
terms of visibility, it's not also the best.
It's good for the top pilots, but it's not good for the normal
pilots. Then we need to improve.
It will take two years, three years, five years, 10 years.
I don't know. It's a new adventure.
This is why we like power gliding and designing a products
in power, in power gliding. There was a young aerodynamic
engineer who was working for eight months for this project
with with Salome, who is also engineer at the end of the
training. As Julian explained, it's only
for top pilots. I said yes for the moment, but
in the future perhaps not. If I remember 20 years ago with
the pod harness, it was not. It was only for top pilots and
now you can see a lot of pilots because it's first more
comfortable you can be and it's nice to fly on a long cross
country flight. We don't speak about aerodynamic
just for that. It's interesting this concept,
just let it go and we will see what's happened and what the
manufacturer and designers are able to create with this new
technology. Wonderful tool.
Now you've answered 10 questions.
I was going to ask you this beautiful description but why
are we talking about the submarine style?
I saw a Maxim flying it and a few other new pilots flying this
all white beautifully designed submarine style harness.
I'm wondering submarine shape has a different appearance
outlook from ozone Gen. or near birds.
Woody Valley is bringing its submarine rocket soon, which is
likely to come on the show as well.
Everybody's trying to achieve the same motive of reducing
drag. Then why do we see them looking
so differently from others? Because let's say paragliders,
paragliders. Everybody wants to achieve less
drag and the most performance. So all the triple C wings look
the same, but submarine harnesses are starting to look
very different from each other already.
So what is the difference inside in different in shape and how
can consumers going out to buy this figure out which shape is
better or which shape is doing less drug like more less drug?
Because to us we don't have the technical know how or expertise
that you have. How does decision making come
from a consumer's point of view when he looks at these?
In the paragliding design, it's very different.
It's designed as a secret and you cannot see it when you watch
the glider in the air. There's a lot of parameters when
you design a ring, which makes a big difference.
If you are not in front of the computer with all the files, you
cannot see it. For example, when you speak
about profile, nobody can see a profile.
Even a designer when you see a ring, he doesn't know which
profile the designer use the profiler you if you watch, you
cannot see it. You cannot see top and bottom
the same way. Everything is hidden.
Paragliding is much different than we think.
For the development of our pro model for our team and Max, we
concentrate on the best performance and aerodynamic.
It was the only way we try more than 80 shapes and not
prototypes 80 shapes. We don't have the money for
that, but try to simulate in a computer way at more than 80
shapes and we finalize our shape in the best way to be the best
aerodynamic. Since the harness we developed,
the pro model is 1.5 kilo, it's generally for I can play
competition, but it was a project of performance.
It was not only for I can fly, it was a general project of of
performance, which is not finished yet.
The other advantage we had is in Neo since 10 years we have a
very good geometry base of harness and based harness, which
is super stable, nice to fly, nice to turn.
We have a big experience with the suspender on the competition
team and Max knows really well that's the geometry of the step.
So the basement of our harness, I always consider that the
basement of of harness is a geometry.
Geometry is super important. There's some manufacturers even
don't fly with the harness when they design harness.
We for to make geometry like a stay up or suspender.
We we spend 200 hours in in the air.
It was a long way to 2 or 300 hours in the air to reach this
objective. So our basement harness were
really good. Then we had to put this shape
and the shape of outside was only the objective, was only the
performance. And when you like, I can tell
you when you have a guy like Maxim Pinoye in as an ambassador
of the of the brand, you don't discuss much about performance.
He knows better than anybody else what his performance on the
bar later. I agree, and I think having
Maxim as part of your team does tell a lot about your brand.
It is. It is some brand where you can
try and do a little bit of research and figure out how to
place your trust in it. While you're talking about the
stand up protection, I've seen you have open patent for the
stand up rescue system. Can you tell our audiences a
little bit about stand up rescue?
What is it? How can they have that in their
parrot lighting in a better way than the conventional rescue
which leaves you hanging? You can install Rogal Apex
square rescue or planar rescue, whatever you can install
whatever you want. I started to make to make the
development of stand up system. It was a discussion with Mark
Boyer, the one of the most experienced test pilot in French
federation for testing the certification.
He's also very experienced SIV pilot, well known in France
pilot and he was in the French team long time ago and he's a
really expert in safety and and performance in paragliding and
we he's a very good friend when we had a discussion when he made
SIV. If the pilot has no time to pack
his wing in the air then you will have a mirror effect when
you have the shoulder strap the rescue attached on the shoulder
pulling backward and if you have the wing attached on the main
points pulling it forward, you will fall on your back.
Down planning is quite risky. I have come under down planning
once the only time that I deployed.
I honestly wish I had removable carabiners or something because
that that position is not the most comfortable position to hit
the impact or anything like. That everybody is studying the
party, lighting gasolinely. I don't like when there's a big
role and everybody follows the role.
We lose out thinking if the role is correct.
But it's a thing in our world these days.
We put all those people followed that don't know if the role is
correct or not. I don't say that I'm out of the
law, not a guy like this. I follow the law if the law is
correct. So it's my own common sense.
But and then when there's a rule in paragliding, I like to see if
the rule is correct. For example, in stability of
harness, everybody say, ah, you have to mean you need to have
high hanging point. No, not all the time.
Sometimes yes, sometimes no. It's probably 20% off the
stability of harness. There's many other factors,
especially the center of quality.
So there's generally in activities like power lading,
there's people who have big rules and they follow these
rules and they don't think if one day they checked if the rule
is correct. Everybody about the rescue was
thinking that shoulder attachment is best because you
stand up. Yeah, but you stand up.
You cannot move anymore. You cannot control your your
rescue. You cannot turn.
You can get stranger here like it happens to team and Angie.
It can happen many things. Then I study and I said it's
stupid this this world to have only on shoulder strap.
Everybody says that. So everybody follow like chips.
And I was thinking let's do a system because most of the pilot
are opening the rescue really low around 151 hundred meter,
even 50m above the ground. So it's quite low to recover a
wing. So generally most of them are in
a mirror effect. We should have a stem where the
mirror effect will be, at least for the position of the pilot.
The best I put in the same place, the rescue on the wing
and then I create a system which stand up the pilot.
He will sit in sitting position very straight and then if you
want to put his legs first, he can.
If you want to keep his legs inside the harness.
It's super safe and it's also easier to recover your wing,
your wing and recover your wing in the correct position.
No mirror effect. You can grab your risers to turn
yourself. If a house is coming in front of
you or a tree or something like that, then you can put a
protection in front. These things make the experience
of making rescue is much more safe and much more comfortable
than to the pilot. Brings back memories of
Sharknose invention by Ozone where they brought out this
seemingly revolutionary technology on the market and
then people eventually started copying it because they had an
open patent. So are we?
Are we looking at this from Neo also being widely adopted?
How's the market response so far?
1st I open it because safety and paragliding is my passion.
If I can bring safety to my passion need to be open.
I put the patterns to show people that it's a important
step in term of a safety. If you don't put the patterns,
nobody see it. So we put the patterns and then
we said it's open for somebody who wants to use it.
Just have manufacturer wants to use it, just have to contact us
and we will put it on the RNS with the system inside.
It will take time because it's not a concept which is super
easy to understand. So it will take time.
Step by step. We launch it less than one year
ago. We put the patterns two years
ago, sorry, we launched the RNS less than one year ago.
Step by step people are thinking about it, discussing and some
people have this RNS suspended on the start to use it in this
ID and then the instructors start to see the real effect.
So it will take time to bring that and we already think about
the next generation of harness to improve it.
So all this kind of technology, they are not visible first.
So it's not so easy. You need to explain it's quite
technical. So it need a lot of time for the
people for the brain of the people to get used of it.
And then it's not a technology which makes, I don't know, you
don't increase free free near glide ratio or you don't very
visible in fact, but step by step, we are more people
interesting. And and and it's a good
argument. But for me, after I taught me
when I sell products, it's AII try to give the best of myself
and my R&D team in the product because I'm not alone.
I have AR and D team with me and philosophy of Neo is to give the
best in equal harness or rucksacks or backpacks.
And then if I can give, if I consider I can give a better
safety, I put it after the people follow or don't like.
Yeah, I listen. But the most important for me is
to give the best in each product.
I think it's visible in your philosophy and the way you guys
have brought it out. As we are close to wrapping up,
Eric, there are two last topics. First, world's safest automatic
aluminium caravan. I mentioned on your website this
is an outcome of your collaboration with Australopen
and Australopen Rocket. What is this about and why does
it get the tag of being one of the most innovative and safest
in the world on a website? How is it different from what's
available on the market? Ten years ago, during the
development of String 2, we had some issue with the carabiners
when we made the test. Then we stopped to study and we
went to the university in Nancy. We specialized in metal and
materials and we stopped to make some tests and the guy is the
engineer told us that the main problem with aluminium is
fatigue. Then we start to study about it
and we discover or we made a test with carabiner we were
using and 85,000 times after 880 * 1000 cycle cycles the
carabiner broke. We were surprised and then we
start to look around and we saw that I knew that in the 2001 I
was 12 peanut get got a problem like that not in the air but on
the ground. Then I went there visit them and
said we need to make something more safe and then they told me
we need to increase the size from 8mm cylinder at the
beginning of the carabiner when we manufacture it we will pass
to 1010mm and then we need to block the problem of fatigue
with the systems. They call it auto lock and you
can go on our website to see exactly the drawing.
And in addition of that, we saw also that the new harness, the
frontal rescue for when you have I can fly or size of the riser
decrease. There was many things around the
shape of the carabiner which makes that it makes it more
fragile. If you take a square carabiner,
aluminium carabiner, I put the scene webbing for the harness
and scene webbing for the riser. It will be diagonal in the air
and we made some tests and discovered that you will lose
70% of the efficiency the of the strength of the carabiner which
is huge. Then we decided to make a
carabiner which has the right shape with the right finger
opening finger of the carabiner and then with the system we
block the fatigue. This is why we developed
carabiner together with Austrian brand Austria Pin.
We had the exclusivity for the first two or three years of
selling and then we open it to the market.
In paragliding. It's the only thing in
paragliding which is not certified.
In terms of strength, harness, rescue, spreader, bars, gliders,
everything is certified except the carabiner.
I don't know. So you are finding carabiners
who are certified. So we make this certification.
But in fact, climbing doesn't need the delta fatigue effect
because there's no they just fall.
But to to prevent this risk of breaking the carabiners because
of fatigue, there's no certification.
There's no certification for the carabiner.
This is why we decided Neo to, to try to manufacture the best,
we call it the most safe carabiner.
And it's a little bit heavier carabiner.
I have two daughters. They are the general of my life.
They are the most important thing of my life.
And I don't want that they lose their father.
So I prefer to carry more carabiners and to come back safe
at home. And then when they discover that
the federation, German federation, French federation,
they decide to say to the people, at least change it every
500 hours or at least change it every five years.
This will avoid most of the risk.
But in addition, we made this Caribbean error.
For that it's very important. Surprised me when Dyneema is so
much stronger. Why did why did the industry not
turn towards Dyneema as the replacement for Caribbeaners?
And how are Caribbeaners just trusted more than something that
is available so easily? I always consider that in
development of projects there's no magic solution.
You have a solution for each purpose.
Problem way to use the gear. Connect of Dyneema is good.
For example going to high mountain climbing and you are in
a slope very steep and then you need to put your harness.
If you cannot open your leg strap, you need to put it like a
pent. Then it becomes really risky,
especially if you have the crampons.
And if you have a connect it's much more difficult to open the
leg strap. It's better to have a carabiner.
Dynamo is really good, but it's not it doesn't fit to all the
way to use it. I don't like the people who come
like for example, of course I consider Choroids that the best
protection on the market. But now we are launching a
Permare from Skywalk for inflatable because we are very
good relation with gin, but also with Skywalk.
We are really friends with these two brands and Skywalk.
We use it for the leg strap harness, removable for the
string. I don't consider Choroid is the
best technology, but I don't say that it's good for everything.
I will use Permare For this kind of use, Permare is better than
Choroid and for some other use Choroid is better than Permare.
I like to be open mind and choose the way I like.
I'm free to use and it's the same in development of product.
If you go only one way, one day you will be wrong.
For example, I was not in favour of of fairing and things like
that and now I discover that it's good.
So we will have fairing in the future.
In fact able honest me personally, not because I don't
care, but I see discussing with Maxim, with team, with the
engineers as a possibility. So I change my mind and we will
go this way also. I love it, but I think that is
the ideology behind your success.
Before I let you go, this might not be revolutionary technology,
but it's quite my eye and I think it's worth talking to our
audiences about it that what's the Neo, what's the new Neo
Dyneema RIP stop all about? And is that another thing that
you have invented or is it just a customization to suit the
needs of parallel lighting? Or if you can talk a little bit
about that? It was must start with non
weaving fabrics. I'm not aware I'm I'll be
thankful if I'm going to introduce.
You have fabrics which the name it was fabric made in USA and
the name I, I don't remember. I have a lost big hole in my
memory and it was non weaving. So when you sue them you have to
type it because it was breaking. It was waterproof but not
flexible. Ageing was not so good.
There was a lot of problems and then some manufacturers start to
work on Dyneema as a ripstop based on the based on the
materials. So we decide to go to see
there's only two, two companies in Europe who are able to to
diet, to weave, sorry to weave Dynamo and one it's our partner.
And we decide to visit them and check what we can do.
We finally put a fabric of polyamid with the ripstop of
Dynamo, the right coating, coating on the right calendar.
We discover that for the same touch of fabric, we gained 70%
of the weight or at least 50%. It's only 1 / 10 grams.
Normally this kind of fabric to be so strong is about 50 to 350
grams. We discovered there was no
elasticity, that was water repellent, not completely
waterproof. We can wash it.
There was no market when you put it in your harness.
So we developed this this material with Catalan, this
brand, this manufacturer from Barcelona.
The main problem of this fabric is compared to a normal
paragliding aeroxide fabric, it's five times more expensive.
We have the labour cost and the material which are very high.
This is why your price are a little bit higher.
But if you want to say high labour cost, you need the best
material. You cannot make cheap, so This
is why we decide to use this material and it's one of the key
of the success. Your your brand isn't innovating
in in small things and spreading it out on larger targeted
audience because these things are invented are are being seen
in all your accessories, such as the harness and the
neoprotector. The helmet is a bit of a
surprise. Hardly the paragliding brand
developed into helmets as well. But I think on that note, Eric,
we have covered everything on my part is, is there anything that
you might want to, you know, throw your light on?
That people working in NEO, most of the people working in NEO on
our outlets like Johnny Fredrison and Clam K2, we are
working together since more than 10 years.
Maxim Pinot, Team Alangi and there were Lorry also Lorry,
Genovese. All have a big passion for the
mountain and not only paragliding, mountain sports,
skiing and climbing. And for the people in there it's
the same. We live in the same area and
share sports in the mountain. We love products and beautiful
products. This is what I learned from Gene
to Gene always told me a beautiful wing will always fly
better than not looking nice wing.
So we try to do beautiful products and we try first to do
a product for us. We don't only follow the
marketing trend, we do products we like to use.
This is our main goal. Sometimes we don't follow
trends, but we try to be authentic in the way to design
on the way to produce in there. This is the most important.
Lovett MA, more power to you and brands like you.
From all of us at Panidama Atlas, I wish you luck.
Keep rocking and putting the magic.
Thank you for being on the chair.
Thank you.