Horacio Llorens and Tom de Dorlodot
We had a live webchat on our Facebook page on 23 May 2014 with Horacio Llorens and Tom de Dorlodot…
Together Tom de Dorlodot and Horacio Llorens have travelled the world flying, filming and pushing at the edge of what is possible on a paraglider.
Horacio has won the Acro World Cup several times and holds the world record for infinity tumbling – at 568, set in December 2012 in Guatemala.
Tom has competed in four Red Bull X-Alps and spends his life flying and exploring the mountains. As well as traversing the Southern Alps in New Zealand by hike-and-fly he has spent months at a time flying in the Karakoram in Pakistan.
As part of the Search Project they have crossed Africa, explored Brazil and flown the world.
With both pilots training in Organya we took the opportunity to have a quick web chat with them on our Facebook page.
Tom and Horacio and the Search Projects team in the South Pacific
Hello guys. We gave you a brief introduction up above. Can you tell us a bit more about yourself. Horacio, can you give us a rundown of your achievements in Acro. … And @Tom, tell us how you got involved in the Red Bull X-Alps first time… you were only 21 weren’t you? What was it like?
Horacio: I have been five times Acro World Cup Champion (2008/09/10/12/13) And Gold Medal in the World Air Games 2009 (Torino) and Gold Medal by Team in the World Championship 2006. Also I have a World Guinness Record for Infinity tumbling (568 revolutions).
Tom: Good memories… haha. Yes, I took part first time when I was 21. Time flies. things have changed quiet a lot. We were on super low budget and pretty fresh at the time. First evening we had MacDonalds for dinner…
Horacio. You’re from the Rodriguez clan – Raul and Felix are famous acro pioneers. When did you start flying and how did you get into acro? How old were you when you started flying acro?
When I was 8 years old Raul and Felix were heroes for me. At 12 I did my first tandem and at 14 I started flying. The father of Raul and Felix, my uncle Felix taught me. With 16 I started competing in XC and with 18 I started with aerobatics. Raul and Felix taught me all what I know. They are still my heroes!
How do you get good at acro? What does an acro learning curve look like?
Horacio: I started in small mountains, so wingovers and ground spirals were my first mastered tricks. Soon I started with looping and SAT and then in the year 2000 we started going to Organya to train. There our level increased so fast, and Raul was having new ideas for new tricks almost everyday. It was epic times!
Tom, you’ve flown paramotors and paragliders in the Karakoram. How many trips have you done, how long have you spent there, and what sort of height did you get? What’s it like flying at 7,000m+?
I was lucky to spend four summers in Pakistan, some flying paramotor with my friend Ramon Morillas and some flying long distance and vol biv with Horacio and Pitocco. This is just one of the best place to fly, you get epic conditions like nowhere else in the world. I remember one special flight above the Baltoro glacier, I reached 7,250m, I could see most of the Karakoram from there.
Tom, you set up the Search Project, which has seen you travel through Africa, Brazil and most recently the South Pacific. What’s it all about? And where next?
The Search projects comes from a simple idea, to go in remote places and search for new and undiscovered flying spots. We had amazing surprises on the way! Africa was incredible, the Pacific was a super trip too! We have a super cool production crew: our photographer John Stapels, our cameramen, Adrien Nisan and Benoit Delfosse. We film our adventure and share web episodes, pictures on the web. It’s cool we have build a great community on SEARCH Projects. it is only starting. We have crazy plans for next year!
Renato Späni: Hey guys, thumbs up for your projects! can you tell us some insights about the agility wing. What are the characteristics and when is it expected to be finished?
Tom: Gradient has been working on it. The glider is quite incredible, super cool feedback for now. Horacio is fine tuning it at the moment and trying some new stuff. It should be ready to go to production very soon. It’s the best we have seen for all helico connections. You will love it. And of course it does the esphera!
You mention finetuning the new acro glider.. what does that involve?
Tom: Horacio is trying new sets of lines, making lots of knots to accelerate or slow down the glider and then tries the maneuvers. It’s all about searching for the best compromise: a glider that’s great for heli connections and for dynamic tricks. The Agility is named after the sailboat we used in French Polynesia. Horacio had this cool idea, and it suits to the glider perfectly.
Pat Orso: Congratulations on the Search Project, guys! It’s a great pleasure and very inspiring to watch your videos. Keep up the excellent work!
Tom: Thanks man, our pleasure.
Horacio: Thanks, it is our pleasure to fly and discover new places. We are already thinking in new places for the next SEARCH!
Horacio – you’ve been across Africa, through Pakistan and into Brazil with the Search Projects. What’s your favourite trip been?
For sure Pakistan is the most beautiful and impressive place I have been flying never ever. It is a place where I have to come back for sure and it was the place where in 2011 I took a XC glider for first time after 10 years!!! I was incredibly addictive for me. Now I want to find time to continue doing XC.
For XC flying, what do you look for in a wing? What do you want in the perfect glider?
Tom: It really depends on what you want to do with your glider. If I go XC in remote and technical areas, or if I’m doing vol biv, I prefer to take an easy going glider, I can be the Nevada light or the Aspen4. You can land it anywhere, it’s great in turbulences and it performs very well.
Safety is my first preoccupation. I fly 350 hours a year but still get in sometime very poor conditions… That’s what you get for trying new lines. The Aspen 5 will be there soon, that will probably be a really good compromise for adventure flying.
Horacio: Good glide and comfort. Nice feeling thermalling and of course safety, as we fly in very remote areas normally and to be safe is compulsory. Aspen 4 has been perfect for me last two years, soon we will have Aspen 5 ready for our next adventures.
Andrew Craig: Do you get scared when you’re flying in remote places?
Tom: Yes, sometimes it is pretty tricky. Especially in places like Pakistan or the Marquesas. The first Hospital is far away. No mistakes allowed, so we try to fly as safe as possible and we always bring a live tracking device.
Horacio: Normally is much more joyful than scary, but sometimes we fly in places where we don´t know clearly the local climatology and sometimes we have been fighting with very strong winds or in very strong turbulences. When you are far from civilization this things becomes more dangerous. In this cases concentration and calm are very important.
What sort of training do you do? How many hours a year do you both fly?
Tom: A lot of training lately, especially physical for me now. We plan to travel 1,800km in vol biv with my mate Paul Guschlbauer this summer. Starting soon. You know the saying: “hard training, easy war”… This morning I went on a hike with Red Bull X Alps friend Aaron Durogati. We had a short flight done. I try to do a lot of hiking and running (around 70km/week) and I fly approximately 350 hours/year. Acro really helped me lately to feel safer in horrible conditions. The ones you often encounter at Red Bull X-Alps.
Hoarcio: I spend all my time training in Organya, full power. 5-6 hours per day if the conditions allow me. In the winter normally I travel with Tom to different places. I do XC and I rest a bit from acro. On the spring I come back to Spain and Organya is waiting for me with good conditions again!
Horacio, you are in Organya now. What are you top three best acro training spots in the world?
1st Organya (Spain), 2nd Iquique (Chile), 3rd Oludeniz (Turkey) .
OK guys, final question from us. Thanks for taking part in this half hour chat. What are you working on this afternoon? Or the next time you get in the air…
Horacio: In 30 min we will be in the take off. My idea is to continue with Rythmic Sat twisted and Sat to hell twisted, together with dynamic full stall and misty flip twisted too. Thanks to Theo de Blic and Tim Alongi we have now much more fun training. I have my own ideas so as soon as I master this tricks I wish to do new things too!
Tom: Yep, conditions look ok this afternoon. I’m working on connections, Sat to Heli, heli to sat, misty to heli. When it gets good you can stay 6 hours in the air here… fingers crossed. But today I have to land early, my girlfriend comes from Belgium to visit.
Brilliant, thanks Horacio. Ok have fun this afternoon and thanks for dropping by – it has been fun.
Horacio: It has been a pleasure ; )
Tom: Thanks for your questions. See you all soon. Fly safe!
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