Everybody can relate,
Here's my take on transporting Hang Gliders, from a part time roadies point of view. When I drove with hang gliders on the truck, everybody knew who we were and exactly what we were doing, it was kind of a badge of courage driving them around. I remember when I drove up with surfboards or skies on top, it was the same feeling. My skateboard, the same way. Point being, you could see us coming from far away because of our foils.
To me that is the complete difference from an unknown person driving or walking up with a back pack on and then all of a sudden pops this parachute out, fiddles with it and flies away, where is the courage? Then they come back and land, pop their chute back in the pack, give me a wink and sing, "I'm a hang glider" and walk away incognito again. HG=happy great, PG=perilous grief.
When you saw hikers carrying hang gliders up the mountain, you saw an athlete walking on precarious trails, balancing 50 pounds of HG on his shoulder, what courage, no incognito there.
Here is an athletic story that you all can appreciate, In 1973-4 Hal Brock caught a ride to town and then hitched a ride up Tomboy to the pass at 13,500, then hiked his glider up a ravine, across a ridge or two and got to Ajax. A trek of miles and miles on narrow rocky ridge line, but this 12 year old HG Pilot, who had once flown at Torrance beach with Francis Rogallo and David Cronk, was ready to fly this really big mountain, and we were all watching him from town. But fair winds had changed and Hal folded up his glider and walked back the way he had came, and hitched a ride back to town. Hal Brock RIP.
The hang glider pilots, and the roadies, seemed to have great courage to drive and hike their gliders to some seriously crazy places, and live, the sled ride down in their machines was easy compared to the drives. Some times it was hours and hours up for a 7 minute flight to town park but each test flight they gained so much knowledge, to where by 1979 John Heiney and others were pulling multiple loops over town, 8 years of testing and crash landings to get those perfect gliders, after 1979 there has been not so much relative improvement. glide ratio yes, and topless gliders
you might as well by a Cessna.
but..
Long winded.
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