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See Dad Glide
Our Reporter and Son Take to the Skies; Solving 'Midlife Crises' at 300 Feet
By STEPHEN KREIDER YODER
THE WALL STREET JOURNALOctober 28, 2005;?Page?W1
My 16-year-old doesn't often ask me to do things with him anymore. So when he does, I figure I'd better just do it.
Which is why I found myself 100 feet above a California cow pasture one sunny morning last month, dangling from a Wills Wing Falcon 195 hang glider. A winch fixed to the ground was towing me higher by a cable. (Picture a kite being pulled into the sky by someone tugging on the string.) I was trying hard not to look down.
Looking down from a hang glider is a bad thing. I'd learned that in early lessons with my son Luke, when we ran down a gentle hill until our gliders lifted us for a few seconds. Eyeing a far-off target helped us fly straight; looking down seemed to make the glider veer into the ground.
Matters were now more serious: We were to fly to 300 feet and disconnect from the cable. It would be, I calculated, like stepping off the edge of a 20-story office building. But I couldn't back out: This was the day Luke and I had agreed to train for. We had just achieved our beginner's ratings, the sport's white belt, which graduated us from the bunny hill to the winch. I'm 48 years old and, no, I'm not too old for this. Middle-aged pilots are the sport's most promising growth area, says the United States Hang Gliding Association, whose average hang-glider member is 45. Hang-gliding schools around the country say they're seeing more of the mature set, with some as old as 79 getting beginner's ratings. Glider maker Wills Wing Inc. reports strong sales of entry-level wings to the over-40 crowd. "It's a custom-tailored answer to a minor midlife crisis," says Mike Meier, co-owner of the Orange, Calif., company. "Some people go out and buy Harleys; some people go out and learn hang gliding."
As the cable tugged me up through 200 feet, my concern was just flying straight. Gusts kept tipping my glider. I wallowed side-to-side trying to wrestle its 33-foot wingspan back on course. A voice in my head asked, "What in the name of sanity are you doing up here?"
It was Luke's fault. "Dad," he said last year for the fifth summer in a row, "we still have to learn hang gliding." We'd taken one lesson when he was 10. I found excuses to put off going back. But when Luke asked last year, it struck me: He probably wouldn't be at home in three years to ask again.
So Luke and I found a local hang-gliding school, Mission Soaring Center, and began driving to its training hill on a ranch 100 miles south of San Francisco. Breezes blow over the pasture from the distant Pacific Ocean, making for easy takeoffs and landings into the wind. The only obstacles: gopher holes and cow patties.
It isn't all that hard to learn basic hang gliding, I would find, even for a man of modest motor skills. In our first lesson, we donned helmets, strapped into body harnesses and hooked ourselves under our gliders with thick steel clips. We practiced running over level land with loping strides to get our wings to lift smoothly. We learned to swing our hips right and left, fore and aft to control the glider. Balancing the wing was a struggle at first, like strong-arming a beach umbrella on a windy day.
Taking off: A student of the Mission Soaring Center learns the art of hang gliding on a slope near Hollister, Calif.
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Next, we started from a few feet up a 40-foot hill, then from still higher. Soon we were getting enough airspeed to lift us off our feet. The first sensation of floating -- not falling -- was exhilarating, like childhood dreams of flight.
'The Low End of the Hill'
One thing was clear from the start: Hang-gliding isn't risk-free. But much of the sport's lethal reputation harks to the 1960s and 1970s, when experimenters were teaching themselves to fly home-made wings. It's hard to establish how much safety has improved, because no one keeps track of how much pilots fly. The U.S. Hang Gliding Association, with about 6,000 hang-gliding members, reports that four members have died hang-gliding this year. Mr. Meier, of Wills Wing, estimates that one of every 1,000 active pilots dies per year. Joe Gregor, who reviews accidents for the hang-gliding association, figures it's roughly as risky as riding a motorcycle on a highway.
"When people think hang gliding is dangerous, they're right," Pat Denevan, our chief instructor and owner of Mission Soaring Center, told me. "But water is dangerous without training, so you start on the shallow end of the pool. We start on the low end of the hill."
The only danger I ever felt was to my ego. Almost from the start, Luke was instinctively flying straight and landing on his feet. I spent early lessons careening wildly, landing sideways on a wingtip or belly-down on the glider's training wheels. "Your son is a natural," one instructor said as we stood atop the hill watching Luke glide flawlessly, adding: "You'll get it eventually." Hoping to learn his secret, I asked Luke how he did it. "I have faster reflexes," he answered, helpfully.
Bought With Retirement Checks
In later lessons, two encouraging things happened. We moved to a 70-foot knoll from which we made longer flights that sped my progress. And we met Mary Ellen Fennessey of Walnut Creek, Calif. I was now not the oldest hang-gliding student we knew. Mary Ellen was 62. She had started lessons a year earlier, not long after retiring, she said, and bought a $3,500 glider with her first Social Security checks. She joined us to brush up on her takeoffs. "The fact that I'm in my 60s does not mean that the adventures of my life have ended," she told me.
Taking off: A student of the Mission Soaring Center learns the art of hang gliding on a slope near Hollister, Calif.
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Mary Ellen pointed out a big selling point of hang gliding for older adventure-seekers: It isn't nearly as strenuous as other adventure sports, such as snowboarding or windsurfing. In fact, my only physical challenge was wheeling the 50-pound glider back up the hill after each flight. I would arrive at the summit gasping for breath; Luke, steeled by his high-school-football training, would be waiting to take over the glider we shared, smiling at his wheezing father. I began fantasizing about taking a vacation to Florida, where a hang-gliding school named Wallaby Ranch straps newbies next to instructors in tandem gliders and tows them up behind ultralight aircraft, releasing them for instructional flights from thousands of feet. This method has let Wallaby teach even paraplegics to fly solo.
I stuck it out. We reached "Hang One," or beginner's status, for, altogether, about $900 each for seven half-day lessons over the space of a year. That brought us to the winch. We stood at one end of the pasture. Our gliders were attached to a tow cable strung between us and the far end of the pasture, 3,500 feet out ahead. A large spool anchored in the ground reeled in the cable at about 10 mph, pulling us forward and up into the wind.
The tug of the cable made the wing harder to control. Reaching 300 feet, I was glad to pull the release cord. The cable fell away. The wind quieted as the wing slowed. I pulled the glider's nose down to gain speed for better control.
Then I realized something odd: I was not afraid. Intuition kicked in. I loosened my grip, and the glider flew almost by itself. The Salinas Valley spread out before me, golden-brown; a red-tail hawk was circling up ahead.
I banked to the right, then left, to line up with my landing target on the path. As the ground drew close, I pushed the nose up sharply to stall the wing, landing on my feet -- 10 feet left of the path. Luke, flying just after me, flew without wallowing as I had and landed on target; he had the decency not to point it out.
How did it feel? Sexagenarian Mary Ellen said it best: "You're hanging in mid-air. You're not thinking. You're wafting gently toward the landing field. You hear the birds around you. It's like the whole world slowed down and turned to vivid Technicolor."
Luke and I now have a dilemma. We had agreed our goal was one good day of towing; then we'd stop. Now we're not so sure. More winch lessons could get us to the Hang Two rating, qualifying us to soar in mild winds off some higher hills. And then there's Hang Three and Hang Four, which would let us soar out over San Francisco's ocean cliffs, or from mountain sites where fliers can stay up for hours over hundreds of miles and soar up over 15,000 feet.
Then, maybe, we should stop.
Getting the Hang of It
Schools across the country offer hang-gliding courses. (You can find them at www.ushga.org/schools.asp.) Prospective students should visit a training site, says Pat Denevan, owner of Mission Soaring Center, and "if they see stuff that scares the hell out of them, they ought to not do it." Here, a sampling of schools:
NAME/LOCATION/NEAR CITY, RESORT/WEB SITE
COST
OLDEST STUDENT*
COMMENTS
Fly High Hang Gliding Pine Bush, N.Y./New York www.flyhighhg.com
$125 for first lesson, $25 an hour thereafter
72
Beginners start on training hill 70 miles from Manhattan; more-skilled pilots move on to aircraft (aerotow) and mountain launches
Highland Aerosports Ridgely, Md./Baltimore. Washington www.aerosports.net
$799 for 10-lesson package
70
Aerotow operation only (beginners share glider with trainer). Beginners fly down from 2,500 feet; site offers tows to 17,999 feet for a truly long (and expensive: $1,200) glide down.
Lookout Mountain Flight Park Rising Fawn, Ga./Chattanooga, Tenn., Atlanta, Nashville www.hangglide.com
$999 multiday beginner package including hill, aerotow and lessons
73
Site caters to fliers on hang-gliding vacations, with on-field lodging alongside its grass airstrip.
Wallaby Ranch Davenport, Fla./Orlando www.wallaby.com
$95 for training flight; $650 for 10-lesson package
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Vacation spot, aerotow only, in Florida woodlands, with onsite cabins, chef and pool on 500 acres
Kitty Hawk Kites Nags Head, N.C./Kitty Hawk, Outer Banks, www.kittyhawk.com
$89 beginner lesson; $495 package to get beginner rating
76
Beginners fly from dunes four miles from where the Wright brothers flew on the Outer Banks.
Mission Soaring Center Milpitas, Calif./San Francisco www.hang-gliding.com
$700 for 5-lesson package
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Beginners fly from hills near San Francisco Bay; instructional "safaris" offered for more-skilled pilots to sites like Big Sur, the Sierras.
Windsports Soaring Center Sylmar, Calif./Los Angeles, www.windsports.com
$495 for 5-hill-lesson package; $745 for 5-tandem-lesson set
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Beginners learn on L.A.-area beach dunes or in tandem flights off a 3,500-foot mountain estimated age of oldest student to get beginner's rating
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