Explore! Hang gliding on the Outer Banks

I’m standing atop a sand dune in Jockey’s Ridge State Park on the Outer Banks with a 30-foot wing harnessed to my body. I’m about to fly.

I’m jittery, but I’m too busy focusing on my instructor to really think about what I’m doing. Maybe my family and friends were right when they said I was crazy.

My instructor, David J. Miller, tries to calm me down.

“See that little green house?” he says, pointing to a structure in the distance. “That’s your target. Keep your eyes on that green house.”

I exhale and say OK – even though I don’t necessarily feel that way.

“Let us know when you’re ready to go,” Miller says.

With that, I say “clear” and begin running. The harness tightens around me, and I move forward.

Beyond the dune’s edge lies flight – if I do this correctly – or something else if I don’t.

I keep running.

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 This journey began seven years earlier, when I first noticed hang gliding at Jockey’s Ridge during a Cub Scout trip when I was a den leader.

“I would love to do that someday,” I thought.

That day has come. I’m at Kitty Hawk Kites, where I have a reservation for a three-hour dune lesson in hang gliding with five flights.

Several options were available, but I chose a dune lesson because it’s low risk and I get to fly solo.

I’ve asked my 20-year-old son, Drew Jenkins, to come along in case his 45-year-old mom can’t hang with the best of them.

As we arrive, I ask Drew whether he wants to try it, too.

“Sure,” he says. “That would be sweet.”

We check in and sign a four-page waiver – an if-you-crash-and-burn sort of thing.

We take seats inside the classroom-style theater named after Francis Rogallo, a former NASA scientist who is considered the father of hang gliding.

Inside the theater, less than a dozen people sit, as Miller begins a 45-minute ground school.

Photographs, mostly black and white, of Rogallo and his wife, Gertrude, line the walls. Miller points to them and shares that a set of curtains from Gertrude’s kitchen became the first hang glider.

Miller gives us the basics: Keep your eyes on your target to minimize roll variations, or tilting from side to side. Let the hang glider take you off the ground.

For control, a light touch on the bar.

We watch a short video.

At one point, Miller reminds us that all a glider needs to fly is weight.

“A bag of sand can fly a hang glider,” Miller says. “And why is that? It doesn’t get freaked out and scared.”

His students laugh nervously.

The next stop is a stationary glider. Miller, who has been with Kitty Hawk Kites since 1984 and began flying in his late teens, takes us there to demonstrate how to hook yourself to the glider, do a hang check and use the control bar.

“Your movements should be smooth and fluid just like if you were underwater,” he says.

To stop or land, he tells us, quickly push the bar out in front of you in one motion.

“When we want you to stop we will tell you to 'flare,’” he says.

With that basic but reasonable instruction, we move on.

We meet up with fellow instructors, who begin fitting us with harnesses and helmets.

“Everyone wearing socks?” Miller asks. “The sand gets pretty hot up there.”

Making our way out to the southwest dune, named for the direction the wind frequently blows there. I’m glad they’ve advised us to carry the equipment instead of wearing it.

The 15-minute hike starts out easily enough, but by the time I get to the top of the dune I find myself huffin’ and puffin’ and looking for water. This turns out to be the hardest part of the experience.

Two 60- to 80-pound gliders wait for us as we gather around for further instruction.

“To put on your harness, just wiggle your way into it,” Miller says.

We separate into two groups. Drew and I – along with Devon Green, 30, of Montpelier, Vt., and her friend Natasha Himmelman, 29, of Cape Town, South Africa – head off with Miller and fellow instructor Alex Tatom, who has been with the company for two months and has been flying for two years.

Green, who received a wind check, agrees to go first. Once she takes off, I lose sight of her.

Pointing to me, Miller asks, “You want to go next?”

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I know immediately when I’m no longer earthbound. The wind takes over, and my feet leave the ground.

Suddenly, I’m soaring. I had expected an adrenaline rush, like you get on a roller coaster, but instead I’m relaxed, even calm. The jitters are gone; I feel graceful.

I maintain eye contact on my target, never looking down, and do so until I hear one of the guys telling me to “flare.”

Pushing the bar away from me, I feel the glider slowing down. As if walking down a set of stairs, very naturally, I gently step onto the sand.

I’ve flown for only seconds, at about 12 feet off the ground. It might not sound like much, but the Wright Brothers didn’t do much better on their first flight in nearby Kitty Hawk.

On the ground, I’m greeted with high fives and an “excellent.”

I take a seat on the sand next to Drew.

“Your son said that you were a beast” – slang for someone who does something well, Green says.

I take four flights and give my last one to Drew. In all, our group travels about 100 yards and is airborne for less than a minute. 

I can’t wait to do it again, to have that exhilarating feeling.

It comes sooner than I expect. As I drift off to sleep that night, the feeling of flying comes over me. The sensation lasts only a few seconds, but it’s a great way to end a great day.   Patty Jenkins, (757) 446-2298, patty.jenkins@pilotonline.com