A hang glider takes off from a ridge just south of Palmdale, CA.
An ex roommate of mine was avidly into hang gliding, and a couple of weeks ago I stumbled upon some photos I took from a day invited me to come out and spend a day in the fascinating world of unpowered flight. Though I work extensively with air and space craft on a daily basis as an engineer, it is always a pleasure and a privilege being invited by a pilot to tag along and see the front lines of aviation, where it all happens. It turned out to be a fantastic experience, and I came away with a new appreciation for the science, craft, and art of riding the wind.
Hang gliding sites see traffic rise and fall with the seasons and changing wind patterns; this being a late-winter/early-spring day, the launch site just a couple of miles from my house (at the time) on Avenue S in Palmdale, California is in prime condition. “The Santa Ana’s are blowing today,” my roommate tells me, referring to the east, northeast, and northern winds that pick up in colder weather. “This should be good.”
A group of about 8 pilots and 5 observers and ground crew get down to work setting up for the day. As they unpack, assemble, and flight-check their gliders, I get some shots of them working, and scour the mountaintop for good vantage points from which to capture the moment of takeoff. The late February wind at around 4,000 feet altitude is a bit chilly, and I am glad for my jacket. The birds don’t seem to mind however; looking up, I can see hawks and ravens alternately swooping and hovering, riding on the ridge lift. It strikes me how artful they are, how simple and elegant their construction — efficient, aerodynamic, and optimized in their environment to a degree our best aircraft cannot hope to match.
Hang glider Darin Flynn prepares to take off.
I snap a few shots of the hawks, and wander back to the setup camp, where the older veterans are imparting some last words of wisdom unto their younger colleagues. After one last equipment check, the time has come. The pilots don their helmets, and it is the moment of truth. The moment that requires them to trust in their equipment and team, to set aside everything their primal, survival-seeking inner selves are screaming… to take a running leap off the side of a 4,000 ft ridge into the arms of winds that don’t give a damn who they are or how much they paid for their gear.
It’s breathtaking.
It’s wild.
It’s more than a little bit insane.
And most of all, it’s beautiful.
Just after takeoff.
In trying to capture the dynamism of the moment when the pilots first take into the air, I find myself nearly tumbling off of the ridge from running with my face glued to the eyepiece. There is excitement, certainly; but it is juxtaposed oddly with the profound silence of it all. After the final “all clear” to the ground crew and that last step on terra firma, only the wind can be heard, whipping over the jagged rocks and through the scant trees on the windward side of the ridge. It’s the kind of wind that muffles your words, quickens your breath, and makes your eyes water; a wind that dares you to come up and play, yet warns you that you had better be able to handle its own particular kind of game. In the end, I am left with a sense of wonder, breathlessness, and a strange loneliness, as if the vastness of the air somehow swallowed my friends up for a little while. It’s a long, quiet drive down the ridge to the landing zone to pick them up.
I don’t care if I nearly fell off the mountain backwards getting some of these shots; you can bet that the next time someone I know is going up, I’ll be there camera in hand… and perhaps with a part of me wishing I was up there too, riding the wind with the best of them, armed only with a wing and a prayer.
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