A most special hang gliding incline has been carved by the president of the US Hawks this last weekend. He formed a micro-hang-gliding incline 8 ft in length. The lower end of the incline meets an extant 36-yr-old micro hang gliding runway (high jump runway ... a form of micro hang gliding). Bob Kuczewski then did a micro hang glide during which one of his flip-flops fell from the sky during his glide; his landing runout from the flight crossed the lower high jump micro-hang gliding runway. The MHG launch incline that he built will be used daily for micro hang gliding by an aging Olympic micro hang glider. Thanks, Bob, for sculpting the historic launch and then flying the site. Good job! Memorable. Generous.
In the same flying session, the older president of Self-Soar Association, mother of the first USHGA, used Bob's constructed MHG ramp for some flights.
Reminds me of when I used to run and jump off the shed roof when I was a kid. The neat thing was that there was an about three foot ground drop directly below the edge of the roof thus adding to the total drop.
In Texas, before towing was invented, hang glider pilots had few options. People laughed at them as they hopped across the barren plains. "Someday we shall fly!" they cried. Then Sam had an idea...
I will email an old friend for a copy of an old video of my craziest launch incline ever....the hill was a shallow slope full of sagebrush with one 4by4 road running straight down the middle but that was not my launch incline....not enough wing clearance to run down it...sagebrush too high.....hmmm....okay...so....climb up onto the front hood of Denny Pings ford Bronco with my Delta wing Streak and brace myself with one foot against the windshield as Denny tried to DRIVE down that 4 by 4 road and accelerate to flying speed....not my smartest idea.... you can hear me yelling in the video...Faster!....Faster!....FAster!!!!....struggling to maintain footing as the bronco was bouncing around......not up to flying speed yet.....Im gonna fall off this darn thing......finally took two short steps down the hood and lunged off the front grill....dipped down a little so now i am directly in front of the radiator and the rear of my keel is staring Denny in the face...then I started pulling away with a bronco on my butt...Cant believe I did that..could have been ran over by my own launch ramp..... Geez...will try and get a copy of that vid.
I was in Quebec Canada, after whitewater rafting on the wilderness Magpie River, and I was waiting for the ferry to go back across the St Lawrence Bay. The year was 1996 and I was surprised to look up at a nearby mountain and there was a wooden ramp obviously built for HG launching. I had no idea, at that time, that there was hang gliding in that area.
I didn't see any hang gliders anywhere either up there or on vehicles in the town.