Introduction

I took my first hang gliding lesson in the fall of 1986 at Kitty Hawk Kites in Nags Head, North Carolina. Some college friends and I drove all night from College Park, Maryland. We slept in the car for a few hours, spent the day in the lesson, and drove home that night.

In 1993, just a few months after moving to Colorado, I took up hang gliding for real. I signed up for lessons through Golden Wings. Lessons included foot launching off of a hill in Boulder, Colorado and some dolly towing on a farm near Hudson, Colorado.

I spent the next 5 years flying in the spring, summer, and fall whenever the weather cooperated. My original glider was a Mystic 166. This glider wasn't good to me. On a trip to the Point of the Mountain near Salt Lake City I test flew a Euro Sport 167. I bought it that day and started to have much more fun and better flights.

My last flight was in the fall of 1997. I gave up hang gliding for lots of different reasons. I thought about hang gliding all of the time. Soon after, in the summer of 1999, I got my private pilots license and I started to build a home built airplane.

In early 2007 I tagged along with some hang gliding buddies on a trip to Villa Grove, Colorado. I offered to drive while they flew. After this day I decided I wanted to get back into hang gliding. I got in touch with my old hang gliding instructor, Mark Windsheimer, and signed up for lessons. This time around most of my lessons were scooter towing at an airpark near Hudson, Colorado. I also did a day or two at the training hill. It was slow going due to my schedule and the weather rarely lining up but I re-earned my hang 2 during the summer of 2007 and had a pretty decent set of flights that fall. I bought a nearly new Sport 2 155. This is a wonderful glider. My flying is already better than it was when I quit 10 years ealier.