Hang Gliding !?!?!?

One of my major goals in life is to attempt a little bit of everything. I would like to experience as many things as possible before I die. I am also very interested in unusual sports (i.e. broomball) and unique activities (i.e. juggling, magic, etc). Sarah knows this is a fairly encouraging in this pursuit. So, for my birthday this year, she got me hang gliding lessons! Crazy, huh? Not only is hang gliding pretty far out there on the unique/unusual scale, but it is also fairly dangerous and impossible in rural Ohio, no? Well, turns out that hang gliding is perfectly possible in flat Ohio thanks to John Alden. John Alden runs the Wings to Fly ltd. school where he teaches complete beginners how to hang glide. How exactly? That was my question.

So, after three weekends of really bad weather and poor flying/field conditions I finally made it up to the Aerodrome Wes/Mar in Orient, Ohio. This is a small grass runway where John teaches hang gliding and other more experienced gliders come to fly (plus other “schools” use it as well including ultralights and skydiving classes). So, John teaches a 3-day beginner course that gets you almost ready to fly by yourself and a 8-day Novice course that teaches you the skills, confidence, and certification needed to fly by yourself. But, he also does a one day, “learn what it is all about” kind of course. That’s what I did. I didn’t realize that "one day" was going to mean from 8 am to 9 pm, though.

So, I got there early and John arrived right on time. John is a very nice guy and everybody I talked to said the same thing. He was an excellent teacher. But, first I signed my life away for insurance sake. Then he ran through how gliders work and how the harness works. Very shortly, we pulled out a hand glider and started assembling it. It was not very hard to put together at all. So, the first thing he had me do, was get underneath it, lift it up, and start running across the field. First, the hand glider I was using was a “light” one and it weighed a lot more than I expected. Secondly, the glider was hard to keep level with the wind pushing it around. Thirdly, it was hard to run fast with the glider. But, once you got going, you could feel the glider start to lift off your shoulders and try to fly. So, that was step one; just to get a feel for the glider.

Next, he pulled out the "Andre the Giant" of hang gliders. The one I had just used had a surface area of about 150 square feet. This one was over 300 square feet. This would be the glider I would use for the rest of the day. There was no running with this glider, though. It was a challenge just to lift it up and hold it steady. So, John Alden broke out his secret weapon, the wench. He has a snowmobile that he has converted into a glider pulling wench. This is put at one end of the field and the line is strung to the chest of the hang glider. Then the pilot gives the go sign and the glider is pulled (yanked) up into the air at a fairly steep angle getting around 1000 feet up and then letting the line go. I saw a guy do this and stay up in the air for over 30 minutes. But, I was not going to be ready for that this day. My goal was to get about 50 feet in the air, let the line go, set up the landing, and not crash in the muddy ground.

So, for the first pull, John was just going to pull fast enough for me to run really fast and the glider to start pulling me up into the air. He started the wench and I started running pretty fast to keep up. About halfway to wench a few things happened really fast. First, the glider got some fairly strong up lift and was almost getting airborne. Second, one of the stupid dogs, that was roaming around the airfield, ran in front of my feet. Third, I tried to jump into the air and over the dog. Fourth, the glider, now with my full weight, came straight back down to the Earth and I did a head-first belly slide. Damn dog. So, John, who didn’t like the dog anyway, drove it (with a golf cart) over to its house and tied it up. So, the next few tries went much better. I got pulled up to about 5 feet off the ground and he slowed the wench and I pushed the nose of the glider up to make a soft landing.

At this point the wind was getting stronger and other more experienced pilots were showing up to get pulled by the wench. So, in the middle of the day, I took a break and just watched others take their turns getting lifted to about 1000 feet and trying to stay up as long as possible. They do that by riding hot thermals rising from the ground. Just look for the hawks; they can tell you if a thermal is nearby. You will see them circling around and around gaining altitude.

So, the later half of the day consisted of me getting very long pulls (about 500 feet) and rising to about 40 feet. It was a great feeling, being up that high. My final challenge was to control the glider up into the air to about 40 feet and pull the tether line off and float down toward the ground. Well, on my first attempt, I forgot to point back toward the ground and kind of did a stall float to the ground and sort of crash landed on my belly. I finally got the hand of it and my last launch went perfectly. If I go back, I will graduate to a lighter, higher performance glider and probably get launched up to about 100 feet.

Controlling the glider was different than I expected. I sort of thought that I would just be hanging there for the ride and moving the glider around if I wanted to go somewhere. That’s not really true. You are constantly in control and you have to maintain control. You are always banking a little bit this way or that and making sure your pitch isn’t too high. Really, a lot to think about. I’m sure it would come naturally after a little while.

This was one fantastic experience. I am very tempted to go back and progress a bit more into the sport. It is a bit scary as well, though. I can’t say which exciting sport was better: hang gliding or race car driving. I think I will have to pursue both of them. Now, lets see, the glider costs about $5000, the harness is $1000, plus other incidental costs….. I only need about $10k to start hang gliding. Oh, and a cliff.