My worst enemy would flip that and call me opinionated, loud, and stubborn. Q: How would your best friend describe you? Your worst enemy?įrank: I think my best friends would call me loyal, professional in all the things I am doing job-wise, sarcastic, funny, and giving 100% all the time. Of course, there are so many from the band Tool that I really love–but then I stop myself, because I think that when you put ‘ Stink Fist from Tool’ into the article, it might not look so good. Photo by Frank Täslerįrank: Johnny Cash’s One is probably my favorite. It swoops like no other–but the landings, sometimes, are a bit rough. The swoopers normally don’t land very nicely, you know? They land on their bum, sliding, crashing in. I collected data for Airtec for the fast canopies, just like I did for freefly. When I finished with freeflying, I went to swoop competitions. At that time, Lego was just, like, blank blocks put together.įrank: The albatross, for sure. It was not flying or anything, like they do now. Q: What was your favorite toy as a child?įrank: I had a Lego helicopter, and I absolutely loved it. That was all I wanted: to go into space and explore, and to have new adventures. It is really hard to get the good fish here in the mountains.įrank: It would have to be something like the design for Captain Future’s costume, because that was my superhero when I was a kid. No matter where I am, I want to have sushi. What does a stone-cold legend do on a lazy Sunday? Let’s find out.įrank: It is definitely sushi. That’s about the time we made Frank’s acquaintance at Airtec, and we’ve been proud to have him as a team member ever since, flying and gathering groundbreaking data for us across multiple skydiving disciplines (free flying, speed skydiving, and swooping, if you’re curious). Oh–and he’s been German National Freefly champion six times over. He’s also a founding member of the self-funded, amateur team of weekend warriors–called “Free Flight Paratec”–that won the very first European Freefly Championships in Empuriabrava, then snagged third at the World Cups, then took silver in freeflying at the World Games. To this very day, it’s still stuck there.įrank went on to become a professional coach, tandem instructor and aerial cinematographer. When he did his first freefall jump, he couldn’t get the smile off his face. After that fateful conversation on Ibiza, Frank immediately started skydiving at the Kassel dropzone in his native Germany. It turned out to be a much better idea than its origins would imply–for Frank, that is the others chickened–and, suffice it to say, he made up for any lost time. The more you have, the more you are scared to lose.įrank was “already 25” when he started skydiving, on a mutual dare concocted at a table on Ibiza with his buddies over drinks. Why worry about money? It doesn’t make you happy. Honestly, there’s been a lot of paradise along the way already, with no signs of slowing. The road to this particular paradise has been unfolding under Frank’s feet for 22 years now. He’s living the dream, throwing drogues and flying camera for Skydive Xdream. When we caught up with Frank, he was sitting smack dab in the middle of what is arguably the most beautiful place in the world: Switzerland’s verdant, peak-encircled Lauterbrunnen Valley.
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