Foot launches are made off hills, dunes, mountains, and cliffs, but gliders are also towed aloft by airplanes, trucks, ATVs, and even scooters. Shifting the body left turns the glider left shifting right turns it right. Push out and the glider climbs and loses speed. Pulling in on the control bar causes the glider to dive and gain speed. The top half of the pilot’s body pokes through a triangular frame-two downtubes and the control bar.
The wing is made of fabric and metal tubes and reinforced by external bracing and internal spars and ribs called battens. The pilot lays prone, suspended in a harness at the center of gravity beneath (usually) a swept wing. The fundamental design of the hang glider has remained fairly constant since it came together in the 1960s. It’s just a big kite, and you’re attached to it, and you can go pretty much wherever you want.”ĭuring the 2017 Tennessee Tree Toppers’ hang gliding competition, Steve Pearson launches a Wills Wing T2C at Henson Gap, Tennessee. “If you ever flew a kite and wished you could be flying up there with the kite- flying free, flying away,” she says, “that’s basically what it is. Hang glider pilot Erika Klein, communications manager for the United States Hang Gliding and Paragliding Association (USHPA), explains why the sport caught on. When the film was made, hang gliding was emerging from its infancy and about to experience a popularity boom.īuilding on a tradition of homemade gliders starting with Otto Lilienthal, Octave Chanute, and the Wright brothers, flying enthusiasts in the 1960s and ’70s fulfilled the dream of accessible, inexpensive, birdlike flight for humans.
He soars between mountain peaks, then climbs, stalls, dives, and swoops high above the water. In the scene, pilot Bob Wills hangs below the wing, shifting his body to exert control over the impossibly simple craft. It has been playing for more than 40 years, and for many, it’s their first encounter with hang gliding. This is the first shot of the hang gliding scene from To Fly!, the iconic IMAX film made for the opening of the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum in 1976. The image on the giant screen is mesmerizing: Above massive volcanic islands reaching up from the ocean floats a tiny triangular form. “We first flew in dreams, but the dream of flight has become real,” the narrator says.
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