Thanks for sharing Larkin
Taking the stick of a Leer Jet! now that's pretty cool. My Father was a truck driver and he let take the wheel of his big rig once, but that hardly compares.
I've never flown in a helicopter, but I have flow RC helicopters before and all the (real) helicopter pilots I have met who have tried flying RC helicopters say it's much harder to fly RC choppers, so I guess I have the skills to fly a real one. LOL
I have flown some conventional planes, but hang gliding was a childhood dream of mine, even before I knew what it was. When I was very young I use have dreams of flying where I would just run a long the ground and take off and glide over the trees and houses. The dreams were quite vivid and the experience was very exhilarating, so much so it would sometimes wake me up, and I couldn't wait to get back to sleep and do it again. It wasn't until I was in my mid teens that the sport of hang gliding came to my attention, as soon as I saw it I knew that's what I wanted (needed) to do. I actually purchased my first hang glider before I had my drivers licence and had to get an older friend with a truck to bring it home for me, despite my mother, who forbid me from bringing it home. There were a few small hills nearby that me and another friend tried to fly it from, but we didn't have much success, which as I look back on it now, is pretty understandable. Two totally inexperienced kids who had almost no clue what we were doing, it's just a good thing those hills weren't really big enough to fly from.
Anyway, I eventually
got my drivers licence and a small truck so I could haul the hang glider to some real hills
(true story) and met up with some (real) hang glider pilots and took lessons, and as they say, the rest is history.
You mention the peacefulness of hang gliding, and certainly it has it's peaceful moments, but its the BIG AIR (as we call it) that often makes for the most unforgettable memories.
After the initial thrill of launching off a hill and gliding back down to the Earth you start looking for ways to stay up longer or climb higher, and around here that usually means thermal soaring. There are places where you can ridge soar, where you take advantage of the wave of lifting air as it rides over a hill or ridge. This can be fun and also some of the most "relaxing" hang gliding, especially if it is ocean ridge soaring, but you are usually confined to a small lift band close to the ridge. With thermal soaring you have a lot more potential to go higher and farther, the sky is the limit as they say. Thing is thermals only form in unstable air, and unstable air means turbulence. The trick is to find air that is moderately unstable, but not too unstable. Not unstable enough and you won't find any lift after you launch and you'll quickly be on the ground again in no time. Too unstable and you'll find plenty of lift, but you may be changing your underwear after you land or, as has happened in some of the worst case scenarios, you get sucked up to 30,000 ft in a cumulonimbus cloud and get stuck by lightning or frozen to death, which of course is not relaxing at all. lol
Many commercial pilots say that most flying is 99.9% pure boredom, and .1% shear terror. I have never found that ratio to quite fit to hang gliding, my experience puts the ratio more like 99% pure excitement and slightly higher shear terror factor of about 1%.
Unfortunately hang gliding is a fading sport, the average age of a hang glider pilot now is close to 50. The reason being is that the new sport of "paragliding" captures most of the young blood and us hang gliding dinosaurs (i'm 53) account for a good majority of people still hang gliding. An interesting fact, I got into the sport quite young so many of the people who I met (who are still flying), were older than me then and are in their 60s and 70s now.
I'd love to relate some hang gliding stories, but this is a pond forum, so I guess I better quit while I'm ahead.
