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Gliding through History 



By Daun Daemon 



Ln 1020, Oliver of 

 Malmesbury, an English monk, 

 donned wings of cloth, 

 climbed a tower and 

 jumped. He hit the 

 ground. Also in 

 that century, a 

 fellow in 

 Constantinople 

 did much the same 

 thing. He died. Word about the 

 danger and futility of jumping off 

 a tower while wearing ill- 

 conceived "wings" of various 

 materials must not have traveled 

 quickly because men kept at it for 

 centuries. Some died, and some 

 got up smarting and got smart — 

 they didn't try again. 



But they all did something 

 necessary: They showed the 

 would-be birdmen who came later 

 what did not work. 



It wasn't until the 1800s that 

 significant developments in 

 manual flight were made by 

 fearless inventors such as John J. 

 Montgomery, Percy Pilcher and 

 Otto Lilienthal. All eventually 

 died in their gliders but only after 

 proving that they could indeed fly. 



In the 1960s, modern hang 

 gliding was born when NASA 

 engineer Francis Rogallo (known 

 as the father of hang gliding) 

 designed a kitelike wing for use in 

 military parachutes. The Rogallo 

 kite quickly became the basis for 

 modern hang gliders, and the sport 

 progressed literally in leaps and 

 bounds. 



By the 1970s, pilots were 

 jumping off mountains in kites 

 made of sailcloth and aluminum 

 — and living to tell about their 

 exhilarating experiences. 



Even Leonardo da 

 designed wings for man 



These days, aspiring pilots have 

 little difficulty finding instruction. Not 

 so two decades ago when John Harris, 

 owner of Kitty Hawk Kites in Nags 

 Head, saw a newspaper photograph 

 of a pilot hang gliding in Utah and 

 decided to try it himself. After 

 ordering a glider through the mail, he 

 and a few buddies taught themselves 

 to hang glide by running off Jockey's 

 Ridge into the ocean breezes. 



It might be tempting to compare 

 those fearless young men to the tower 

 jumpers of centuries past, and Harris 

 himself admits that in the sport's early 

 years pilots pulled some stupid stunts. 



"In the '70s, people were buying 

 gliders mail order and then jumping 

 off Pikes Peak with no experience, 

 doing crazy things like that. People 

 just assumed they could fly the 

 gliders," he says. 



But jumping off Pikes Peak in the 

 Colorado Rockies and into the winds 

 at Jockey's Ridge with no experience 

 are as different as learning to drive a 

 car on a Los Angeles freeway and a 

 country road. The degree of risk isn't 

 the same. 



Folks today also can feel more 

 assured about the sport's safety than 

 those who winged it 20 years ago. 



Harris says that in the 

 early years there were 

 "dive recovery and 

 tumbling problems" 

 — enough to scare 

 away all but the most 

 dauntless souls — 

 but now pilots wear 

 parachutes and 

 gliders are designed 

 to prevent these 

 unwelcomed maneu- 

 vers. The kite configura- 

 tion is the same, Harris says, 

 but the frame is beefier and has 

 more ribs to hold the wing 

 shape. Gliders are also heavier. 

 Early models weighed about 45 

 to 50 pounds, but state-of-the-art 

 gliders today tip the scales at 

 about 55 to 60 pounds. 



An improved craft is 

 certainly a safety plus, but 

 equally important is the avail- 

 ability of information and 

 instruction. Hang gliding 

 associations, clubs and schools 

 nationwide help ensure that most 

 people learn to fly under the 

 tutelage of veteran pilots. 



Well-designed craft and a 

 broad knowledge base make 

 hang gliding one of the least 

 dangerous adventure sports. 

 According to Harris, it is a safer 

 pastime than popular sports such 

 as scuba diving and snow skiing. 



"Statistically, it's the safest 

 aviation sport too. It's safer than 

 flying small planes. It's safer 

 than parachuting. It's safer than 

 ballooning," he says. 



So, as it turns out, Oliver 

 of Malmesbury had the right 

 idea — 950 years ahead of 

 his time. □ 



COASTWATCH 7 



