Introduction

I am not a heights person. More specifically, I’m not a “falling” person. That swooping, stomach churning feeling as freefall takes effect is the worst feeling to me. On roller coasters, I learned to grit my teeth through the initial drops so I could enjoy the turns, loops, and speed. Understandably, I have never shown interest in “death drop” rides, sky diving, or turbulence on airplanes. 

However, I do love the idea of flying. Being up high is invigorating. As a kid, I always imagined that a jetpack would be the easiest way to “experience” flight. I envisioned cruising over the tops of the houses in my neighborhood, and peering into birds’ nests in the trees. 

The Surprise

As I got older, I had some  interest in parasailing but never got the courage to try it. For my birthday one year, my boyfriend surprised me with a hang gliding experience. He had a decent amount of experience himself. Earlier in college, he would drive a few hours north to participate in a training course at the Lookout Mountain Flight Park. He never finished the course (the demands of grad school became too great) but he learned how to do a number of aerial maneuvers in his lessons. 

Hang gliding appealed to me, because other than the absolute insanity of flinging yourself off the side of a mountain, it struck me as a very calm flying experience. You are gliding, banking, and dipping, but hang gliders are not known for their quick maneuverability or high-octane action. This suited me just fine, though I was still nervous. We lived in Atlanta at the time, and Lookout Mountain was only a few hours north, right on the Georgia-Tennessee border. 

I had been to Lookout Mountain a number of times growing up; it has great hiking and a few other tourist attractions nearby (in particular Rock City, which I love with unreasonable passion). Early on a Saturday morning, we started our drive up to Tennessee. During the two-hour drive, my boyfriend divulged a few details about the experience. It would start with some hang gliding lessons on the training hills, but later I would get treated to a full tandem hang gliding experience. 

Exciting as it sounded, the main flight gave me bigger butterflies than the training did. 

As we drew closer to the address, we passed several launch points. It looks like a short bit of paved road that runs straight off the edge of a cliff. The paving runs right to the edge and even curls over a bit. It is an incredibly unnerving sight. Other sites had a curled ramp that was made out of wood or cement, a carefully constructed route to open air. I nervously asked my boyfriend if that was how the tandem flight would go. He reassured me that the tandem flight is towed up to altitude by a plane; after reaching the target altitude, we would then detach and glide down. 

Hang Gliding Lessons

Reassured, I refocused on giving directions. We turned onto a gravel road in the woods, eventually coming to a flat grass track. It was perfectly remote, but what I liked seeing was how reasonable the training area looked. It was a huge grassy clearing with  a number of hills, ranging in height and steepness. As we walked, my boyfriend pointed to the largest hill. “That’s the one I was training on when I stopped. You have to demonstrate that you can turn left and right then land correctly before graduating to the main launch site.” I liked how soft everything looked, and how gentle the slopes seemed. 

We checked in and presented the tickets. My boyfriend wasn’t participating but decided to play photographer and moral supporter while I received my lesson. Obviously there was a large emphasis on safety in the briefing, as well as explaining the basics of how hang gliding works. The trainer explained how to get into the harness, and how to check the hang gliding frame and the harness connections to the hang glider. He explained that to hang glide, you clip into the harness and hold the glider frame. Then, you take a running start off a cliff, and once the wind catches you and the glide has started, you tuck your legs and lower half into the “sleeping bag” portion of the harness. When you are actually flying you don’t need your legs dangling beneath you slowing you down. On some gliders, you can land with your legs still tucked up as well- there are wheels on the frame of the hang glider that are the point of “touch-down”. For my training lesson, I never got fully into the bag; I would only be getting a few feet off the ground, so there wouldn’t be time for all of those gymnastics.

After the safety briefing and introduction the trainer took me out to the very first training hill- the friendliest looking little hump I had ever seen. My trainer showed me the glider and the harness connections. He picked up the frame and had me get a feel for the weight and showed me where to grasp. I was very lucky here- a hang glider typically has to be transported to the hang gliding spot, then assembled. I was reaping the benefit of having a paid guide to do all of this for me. 

We practiced clipping me in and standing with the hang gliding frame a few times, with my boyfriend enthusiastically snapping photos in the background (very exciting stuff). The frame has a padded “V” that rests on your shoulders, but your arms grip further down to control the angle and direction. Eventually I got to the point where I could try to catch air. The guide explained that you start running across the top of the hill, over the top and then down. As you run, you have to keep the frame very square, with the nose of the hang glider pointing slightly up. I found this quite challenging. A hang glider is not hugely heavy, as it wouldn’t be able to fly if it was, but it was not light, and it was unwieldy. I struggled to keep from dipping a side as I jogged, and it was counter-intuitive to lift the nose as you start running downhill. But we kept at it, and I caught air a few times.

It is an incredible feeling. One second you are running, the next your feet are treading air, and you feel light as the hang glider takes your weight. The sensation always made me look down to see the ground scrolling underneath me. Of course, this tended to pull the nose down, which ended the fun of flying. The slope of the hill was so gentle that even given perfect technique you wouldn’t fly for more than a few seconds anyways. It was great because on the aborted attempts, you could touch back down without plowing into the dirt. 

I don’t know how much time we spent in the lesson- that few seconds of flying was incredibly motivating to keep trying. It also felt so safe that my anxiety had vanished. Eventually though, my lesson was over and it was time for the tandem flight. I thanked the instructor and my husband showed me some of the photos he took. Lots of shots of my concentrated face and pinwheeling legs. 

Tandem Hang Gliding Flight

We had to relocate to another nearby site for the tandem flight. They used a small prop plane to tow the hang gliders up into the air, and the training field, while large, was surrounded by hills and mountains- terrible for trying to land a plane. There was a large parking lot and a covered wooden waiting porch where we checked in and watched promo videos of people jumping off cliffs. I mean flying. My nerves were back in full force. While we waited I did get to see several “takeoffs” which helped. 

Time stretched then contracted strangely and my tandem guide came to fetch me. My pilot was, for lack of a better word, an easy going hippie man. No notes on this, that is exactly the sort of good vibes energy you need when facing something scary. He was calm, but confident. I didn’t manage much conversation, but he mentioned that had done this thousands of times. For this flight we had a kind of two tiered buddy bag situation.

Since we were being towed, we clipped all the way into the hang glider and actually assumed flight position while still stationary on the ground. My pilot was above me and I hung immediately below him. Other staff brought the plane around and hooked up the tow rope to the front of our hand glider. The plane’s engine kicked on, and the propellers started to spin. The rope slowly unspooled until the line was taut and we were rolling forward. The plane started to pick up speed, and we rolled faster. Then we just…lifted off the ground. It felt like levitating. The plane climbed steadily and I gazed down at my bird’s eye view of the field with awe. My guide was busy referencing his instruments. This hang glider was kitted out with more gadgets than the one I trained on. He had an altimeter to read altitude and a compass for direction. 

Once we reached 1500 feet, my pilot reached up and unclipped the tow rope. We actually decelerated a decent bit, but we didn’t “fall” at all. Or at least there was no perception of that feeling. My pilot let the silence stretch for a few moments, then reached up with a grin and turned on A RADIO that he had mounted to the frame. I think I laughed at that, because it was so unexpected. The music was perfectly audible, in fact we could talk with each other pretty comfortably. There was a feeling of movement but not being pummeled by wind. Now that we were flying on our own, he started to show off with some maneuvers. We spiraled down in a corkscrew first left, then right. We “dove” which gave a sensation of increased speed, but again didn’t feel like “falling”. Then he gave me the bar! We were still quite high and he had me try a few of the same maneuvers, turning, diving and swooping. 

I enjoyed this part a lot because I really got a sense of how much force was needed to push the bar and how fast the hang glider responded. I also liked how stable hang gliding inherently is. The only dangerous thing I could have done would have been to push the nose sharply up and hold it there – that would have turned from flying into free-fall really fast. The guide would have intervened if I had tried it, but the thought didn’t even cross my mind. I knew I was gliding, so there was no reason to point the nose up because you can’t actually go “up”. I did a small push and it slowed us down, but it didn’t really do much else.

Another reference to the altimeter and my pilot took back the bar to prep us for landing. He straightened out our direction. The plane had towed us decently far away from the starting field. We weren’t losing altitude super fast, so our flight path had to be long enough that as we descended we were going to hit the ground in the field and not beyond it. We got down to 40 feet off the ground before we even flew over any part of the landing zone.

When you land a hang glider, you are supposed to take advantage of the ground effect. If you have flown commercially, planes do the exact same thing. You get really close to the ground, as close as you can get without touching down and you coast parallel to the ground for a while. This doesn’t do much for your speed, but it flattens out your angle and contributes to a smooth landing. Interestingly, as we coasted over the ground, my belly seemingly scraping the grass, my guide pushed the bar forward and flared our nose up. It was probably a smaller angle than I thought, but it still slowed us way down, and after straightening back out, our wheels touched down and we rolled to a stop within 50 feet. 

My guide freed me, and I thanked him profusely, walking away on jelly legs. It was an exhilarating experience. I would recommend hang gliding to anyone who wants to soar but not fall. I don’t imagine this will ever become a primary hobby – trusting myself to run off a cliff is still beyond my comfort level. But it was a really enjoyable experience and I would absolutely go on another tandem flight again. 

Lookout Mountain Flight Park

I did my experience with Lookout Mountain Flight Park. If you are interested in having my experience, my boyfriend bought the Hang Gliding Introductory Experience.

If you are looking for more interesting activities to try, check out some of other articles on night hiking and snorkeling!