I went for my first time this weekend! What a rush , if you live near here check it out. And i thought the ninja put a smile on my face:D

www.hangglide.com

We use to watch them at Torrey Pines(SD), going out over the cliff.
Looks like fun, dont think I could do it thou.

right on nate!
i've loved things aviation all my life...while in highschool a buddy and i became friends with this older fellow who we would see driving around with his hang glider stowed on the top of his van. a hold over from the hippy daze of the 60's, this guy was only too willing to share his knowledge and joy of hang gliding. we heard of gliders operating off these smaller ridges in this particular area of kauai, and you just didn't see this sorta thing back then here. (1979-80) never got a chance to explore hang gliding further though, and unfortunately someone expired while operating their gliders at that area mentioned. i left kauai for the airforce shortly after meeting this guy...
my buddy went on to become a multi-eng. rated pilot....
i got to fly in the back seat of F-4's
:D

dude i used to fly daily when i was in the service, and this was the first time since. it was awesome compared to a helicopter which is so loud and violent it was really like being a bird ha ha ha im addicted

I have never done any hang gliding before but I have several hours under my belt learning to fly a sail plane. That was the best flying I have ever done. It is so quiet and it's a chalenge hunting for thermals to keep the flight going. I stayed up one time for over an hour and could have stayed up longer but brought it back down so someone else could have a turn.

My wife used to before we were married. I've never been. Next time we go to visit family in Venezuela she promissed to take me.

dude i think it should be required by law to hang glide lol

The other day I was out fishing with my dad while he was in town and we saw 3 or 4 ultralites flying over the bay, looked fun as hell.

The other day I was out fishing with my dad while he was in town and we saw 3 or 4 ultralites flying over the bay, looked fun as hell.

yeah i bet they are , they towed me off the ground with one it sure sounded cool under a load, i think most are powered by rotax engines

Back when nobody knew what the hell hang-gliding was, a friend and I bought plans to construct our own hang-glider in the back of a Popular Science magazine. For two weeks we constructed this contraption out of bamboo, duct tape and sheet plastic. It looked pretty weird, but it was aerodynamically sound. Only had a couple of bars to "hang" off of while in the air, no harness or emergency chute like they'd develop years later.
We had a really big hill nearby and the when the day came that it was completed we walked the thing up 5 or 6 side streets to get to it. Not only did people not know what it was, but it took up the whole street and cars had to pull over to let us pass. When we finally got up the hill, my buddy took first crack - and the damn thing actually flew! Only 10' off the ground and for only 100' or so, but it FLEW! We spent the rest of the summer jumping off that hill without a single injury until we crashed it beyond repair. The next summer we signed up for our first parachute jumps and a little while after that the first "official" hang-gliding center opened in about 60 miles away. And the rest, as they say, is history.

oh cool, im a little bummed on how expensive it is and theres that bamboo up the street......brb