How to Glide

Flying a Glider is an aerial dance. Twisting and shifting, you carve gentle pirouettes in the air, hardly aware of the wing over your shoulder. Most pilots lay prone, flying like superman in a secure fabric and webbing cocoon, suspended from the central balance point of the wing. Move your body by pulling or pushing on the triangular control frame, and the wing turns, climbs or dives in response. Its simplicity is its beauty. Move forward to dive for speed. Move backwards to slow up in a climb. Shift to the side to bank into a turn. You control your wing's movement in a visceral, active way that no airplane pilot has ever experienced. Takeoff and landing is accomplished sitting upright with the gear (your legs) down. You run down the launch slope with the glider floating above you until, at the right speed, it lifts you into the air. When you want to land, you skim across the landing field, then rotate the wing up and back to drop gently on your feet.