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Mountain peaks attract ...
... and then someone is first to launch a hang glider off this and that peak. Here is a note today of a corrective of claims regarding Mount Kilimanjaro
29 January 2013
Dear BBC,
Your lead sentence in the BBC Web article "Squash Falconer bids to fly off Mount Kilimanjaro" states: "A paraglider from Derby is attempting to be among the *first* people to fly from the the summit of Mount Kilimanjaro to raise money for projects in Tanzania."
The second sentence states: "Squash Falconer, from Thulston, is already the *first* woman to fly from the summit of Mont Blanc.
Clearly, the emphasis is on the act of being *first*.
The truth is, people were flying from the summit of Kilimanjaro years before Ms. Falconer was even born. Please see http://www.charly-produkte.de/en/about-us.html
Note that engineer Thomas Finsterwalder, Albert Leutenmaier and Heinz Walter made the *first* successful flights from Kilimanjaro in January of 1976 on Finsterwalder's 11 kg "Bergfex" backpack Rogallos. Two are pictured on the summit (the other snapped the photo).
The unsuccessful flight implied on the Charly website was made in 1975, also on a Bergfex. The pilot landed in the jungle below the summit, so he was the very first to fly off Kilimanjaro. I do not have his name, although Thomas Finsterwalder likely does.
Please also note also that NASA developed and defined 3-pole Rogallos as "paragliders" in the original literature and that the modern paragliding community explains that paragliding was invented at this time.
By making no distinction between the two in your article; by placing emphasis on "first" but not mentioning who was actually first; by failing to qualify the claim with either the "first legal" or the "first modern paraglider"; and by stating the group is to be among "the first people to fly from the summit of Mount Kilimanjaro", you serve to re-write history.
Also, if you wish to defend the article by saying the primary point is that the group may be the *first* "to raise money for projects in Tanzania," my opinion is that such a defense is misleading and that the BBC has sought to confuse aviation history with trivia.
Rick Masters
President, Cross Country Pilots Association (1983-85)
