[ricki]

Some more about hang gliding. You know how fighter pilots say nighttime carrier landings deliver some of the most uneasy and stoked moments in a flyers life? Truck tow hang gliding can be like that. You are blasting down a road at 40 mph + and they you yell "clear" and are catapulted backward off the bed of the truck. The truck is triggering thermals as it blasts down the road which in turn kick the hell out of you trying to stay in line with the truck and wings up. It is an intense experience particularly on hotter days. You tow up to about 1/2 mile high and then release the tow line to the recovery parachute and you are on your own.

You glide along looking for lift. I've never soared with eagles but I have thermalled with quite a few buzzards. You may see a stack of buzzards coring a thermal so you fly over to intercept the invisible column of rising air. Suddenly you hear a rushing of air, like when you stick your head out the window on I-95. Your variometer, if you have one of these vertical velocity meters, goes nuts beeping like a lunatic. You hear the rushing of the wind, that is you rushing UP. Thermals are finite and easy to fly out of. When you come into one, one wing only can get caught blasting skyward throwing your off balance for a while until you can arch into to core the thermal. There is a lot of tradecraft, knowledge, experience and a bit of luck that goes into thermalling and cross country hang gliding. I remember hearing a story about a guy who was caught in some cloud suck* in a deteriorating storm cloud and ended up at about 11, 000 ft. AGL, a launch record. Hang gliders are built tough and in theory can sustain more G forces than some fixed wing aircraft. We carry reserve parachutes, sometimes several, comm. gear,fared kevlar helmets, etc.. It can be a rush and enlightening thing to experience.


* Cloud suck is when a cloud, say a cumulonimbus pulls you into it through very powerful convective forces and can fly you upward at 60 to 100 mph + in grey/whited out conditions. Guys have tried to dive out of cloud suck but considering you can pull the wings off some gliders at 70 mph, good luck. You don't know which way is up but you are flying there hell bent for leather. Bad part is that if you after you go much above 13,000 in a 50,000 high cloud, you lack sufficient oxygen to stay conscious. That's OK because hypothermia isn't all that far behind. There was a case of some HG in a competition in Europe being sucked up into a cloud. They were later found scattered all over the area, in cold induced fetal positions, dead.