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"On a cliff swept by a relentless wind a man stood under a hang glider ready to launch. He stood with feet apart, senses keenly alert to the feel of the wind and the sharp upward pulling of his sail. When his wires were released by his assistants he knew he would go up - straight up to perhaps 5,000 feet - and from that moment he would be free to soar as long as the wind blew and his will and body allowed. If it suited him, he might not come down for eight hours.
Thus, has the sport of hang gliding developed from that time in 1970 when a man needed all his friends pulling and pushing together, to launch him and his ungainly wing a foot or two off the ground for a trip that would last two or three seconds. It only took a few men, flying a few feet, on a few occasions to ensure that the new sport of hang gliding would survive. It was irresistible. One experience was enough to infect them. It got in their blood. If they flew at all they had to fly again, and they had to talk about it. They had to involve others; for euphoria was then, and still is, the predominant mood of hang gliding. People who try the sport do so because they want to fly (some say they need to fly) in the elemental, basic way that men have always wanted to fly - feeling the wind, moving their bodies freely in three dimensions, getting higher than everybody. It is a passion which has existed, probably, since the first man saw his first bird.
In California in the early 1970's a group of flyers assembled to talk about flying. After a while the group gave itself a name: Coast Hang Gliding Club. The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) called and wanted a complete list of participants so they could charge them with flying unlicensed aircraft. Mark Lambie told them he had no idea who the people were and his own ship was tethered at all times, bringing it under kit regulations. For months afterwards, shrewd hang glider pilots kept useless strings dangling from their craft to prove, if necessary, that they were nothing more than kites. In time, the Coast Hang Gliding Club's name changed, first to Southern California Hang Gliding Association and finally, in 1973, to the United States Hang Gliding Association (USHGA), accommodating the thousands of members living outside California.
After a large number of deaths in the 1970's, steps were taken to make hang gliding a safe sport. Robert Wills, Sr., formed the USHGA's Accident Review Board (still in existence) to study, record and disseminate the causes of accidents. Only then, he felt, could their reduction begin. Only when people knew what was happening and in what numbers would the industry find the means of responding. Slowly, it began to work. In the meantime, flyers and manufacturers took steps. A general indignation at unsafe practices ensured. Peter Brock, a flyer and manufacturer, decided to form a Hang Glider Manufacturer's Association (HGMA). The purpose was to set standards for hang gliders and become a self-enforcing body. In the beginning there was a lot of resistance to any sort of certification or standards, but when the accident rate began to climb, 'we all began to see the reason that an industry group was needed.' Eventually, Peter Brock, Gary Valle, and Tom Price, were able to make the HGMA work. In lieu of formal new model testing, manufacturers devised their own tests: measured the breaking point of tubing, stretched cables till they snapped, hung six flyers of a hang glider to see if it would break. A lot was learned. Some companies doggedly test-flew every kite they sold, believing this to be the only sure means of quality control. Today, factory test flying is a HGMA industry requirement.
Factory test flying of all production gliders came hard. Most of the buying public never knew the difference, but thee exceptional hang glider integrity record since the late 1970s is due in part to industry-wide test-flying and certification. Hang Ratings (a pilot proficiency ratings system designed by the USHGA), implying a sort of FAA seal of approval, are both awesome and necessary. Increasingly, cities, counties, and the Nation Park System have given first grudging acceptance of, and finally active support to hang gliding.
The sport became a grown man. It had a deep voice and it shaved. It was treated with respect. No longer was there talk of punishing it, of sending it off to its room - or sending it away altogether. Hang gliding was master of its own destiny, in control of its affairs. By itself, without government regulation and without FAA intervention, the hang gliding industry - USAGE, manufacturers, and instructional schools - got its act together and imposed its own strict standards. On itself! The sport was self- regulating. It monitored its own. The rules it made for itself were respected. It set up standards and expected its manufacturers and pilots to live up to them. Because of these things, and the use if helmets and parachutes, hang gliding became safer. In fact, its outstanding achievement was its improved safety record.
Between 1971 and 1975, flapping plastic on bamboo frames evolved into silent dacron rainbows on polished aluminum skeletons with a 35-foot wingspan. In its evolution, even the names changed. In the beginning everyone called hang gliders, "kites." Subtly, the accepted word became glider. Ten second glides down a grassy slope became unlimited soaring above ocean cliffs and mountain ridges. The transition in those four years could be compared to a telescopic leap from the Wright brother's contraption to the early jets of the 1950's. Hang glider flights have expanded from 28 miles to a present record of 308 straight-line miles. Particularly in the west, thermaling pilots can use nature's lift to climb as high as 18,000 feet.
Men now do fly like birds - hugh, multicolored birds.
Manbirds, Hang Gliders and Hang Gliding: Maralys Wills, Prentice Hall, Inc.
Englewood Cliffs, NJ. 1981. (Quoted excerpt)