🔥 Secrets of European Paragliding Champion - Theo Warden 🪂

Theo Warden will share his thermaling secrets & competition insights with Seattle Paragliding. MUST WATCH! 🔥Chalk talk from April 30th 2022. Since learning to fly in in 2013, Theo has flown in countries all around the world to compete successfully at the highest level in international competitions. In 2018 he became both British and European Champion. Recognising that achievement, Cross Country magazine noted that “Theo started flying as a teenager, and learnt from a former world champion. Judy Leden, a competition hang gliding legend in her time, taught Theo the basics when he was just 14.” ​ It didn’t take long before paragliding started to take over his life. He spent all his spare time after school and in school holidays either flying or planning his next adventure. Theo flew a record-breaking 200km flatland flight on a mid-range glider (an EN B rated Mentor 4) in only his second XC season, 2015. From there Theo went on to join the British Paragliding Racing Academy which is run by Malin Lobb, vice world champion Guy Anderson, and Ozone test pilot Russ Ogden. Learning quickly from best pilots in the world, Theo was soon flying amongst them in international cross country competitions. It wasn’t long before he joined the British paragliding team and became the youngest ever Champion at both British and European level. Theo finds paragliding to be the most social of sport. “Being in the air with people where everyone is in the same head space, enjoying the experience of all flying together and then landing and having the chance to all share our experiences … I can’t think of anything more enjoyable”. Very early on in his flying career, after a small 35km cross country from a local site with John Warden, Theo’s father, he knew cross country flying, and sharing the joy it brings with the people around him, was his passion. To be able to do that with non-pilots, Theo gained his tandem licence, and shortly afterwards bagged the declared UK tandem paraglider distance record. ​ When he’s not flying, guiding, competing, giving tandem flights or paramotoring, Theo works at Aerofix, the UK’s leading paragliding service and repair workshop based in the Peak District. Visit https://www.seattleparagliding.com/ for more info on tandem flights and to become a badass paragliding pilot! Recorded and edited by Abraham