The Dynasoarers

Stories and Articles

• Coombsy's Big Day Out - by Geoff Coombs
• Coombsy's Coastal Run (Bell's to Apollo Bay) - by Geoff Coombs
• Who needs the Morning Glory - Geoff Coombs
• My first Cross Country - by Darren Brown
• My First One - Harry Buckle
• A Flight to the Borderlands - a classic - 1998 by Paul Gazis
• Learning to Hang Glide (on the HGFA Website) - answers questions you may have about learning to hang glide.
• Early Victorian Hang Gliding by John Reynoldson
• Rules for Flight - Unknown
• Sure Fire signs to show that you are a Hard Core Hang Glider/Paraglider Pilot - Unknown

Signs you are a hardcore pilot

"Ways to tell you're a hardcore HG/PG Pilot "

You talk to thermals.

You nickname at work Is Wing Nut.

You root for any thermalling bird.

You begin to pity the ground bound.  

You tell people your nickname is X-C.

Your weather radio is on continuously.

You only work to support your hang gliding.

Your glider is worth more than your car.

Your arms and shoulders are always sore.

You walk around all day with a camelback.

You talk about airtime like drugs.
Have you got any lately?   No, have you?
No, but I heard Fred got some.   Really? Where? I really need some. It's been too long.

You coach paper bags you see in thermals.

You own at least 3 hang gliding T-shirts.

You own only hang gliding T-shirts.

You drive six hours for a one hour flight.

Non-flying friends have forgotten your name.

You have $500 in savings and you think GPS.

You forget what non-soaring friends look like.

People no longer ask if you saw the game.

When you're not flying you're reading the magazine.

You incorporate HG jargon into everyday speech.

Sex is something you do when it's not soarable.

You get depressed if you're not near mountains.

Your driving becomes erratic. - Looking for roads up them thar' hills. - Watching clouds develop - Watching thermalling birds...

You stick your hand out too often while driving.

Car prices seem like altitudes to you ($17,999).

Any camera you buy has to have a remote control.

Your stack of hang glider magazine outweighs you 2:1.

You know what a Wedge Tail Eagle really looks like.

Most of your tapes are hang glider videos.

You see a BIG hill (ya, well, 100ft in FL) and check the bottom for a LZ. (drove the Blue Ridge Pky and had to check out each overlook for LZ's)

You've taught your dog to kick up dust on command.

You call in sick to work with a “soarable” throat.

You start pushing out when your alarm clock beeps.

You have a HG calendar at work AND at home.

You sneak a vario onto an elevator for a quick fix.

You hang in your harness when you read or watch TV.

You own more than one good camelback, just in case.

You sell your Porsche, go shopping for sport trucks and all your comments begin: ...with a glider on the roof... ...sun-roof to checkout the clouds... ...4wd to get up the road... ...roof racks...

You've blownout 4 camelbacks, and lost 3 nipples.

Your furniture is made from broken hang glider parts.

You checkout any new house with a tape measure first.

You re-read ‘72 issues of Ground Skimmer' on rainy days.

You possess a large number of photographs of your feet.

Your vehicle is covered with Hang/Paraglider stickers.

Your vehicle is covered with dust from your local site.

You've named some of the Wedge Tail Eagles.

Your removable glider rack is permanently mounted on your truck.

Your hang gliding file takes up more space than Windows.

You start thinking of your co-workers as ground bound slugs.

You get air-horny twice as fast as you get ordinary-horny.

You refer to your pet bird's good landing as “Nice flare!!”

You wear a Casio Altimeter watch instead of a Swatch watch

The only friends you have are other hang glider pilots.

You become president of the two local hang glider clubs.

You neck is permanently kinked from looking up all the time.

You say “CLEAR!!” to your significant other when pulling out onto a busy road.

You live in a high-rise next to other high rises and yours is the only telescope pointed at the sky.

When your 4-year old's teacher asks you why she yells "Clear" before she jumps off the monkey bars.

When you hear a radio announcer say "Big Sale", and it makes you think about your wing loading instead of bargain hunting.

You have more than one glider in the living room. (per occupant)

Driving (in car) down the road, hitting a gust, you comment " nice thermal".

Your car "Betsy" is jealous of your glider "Susie".

You forget what non-soaring people were like.

Any outdoor photo, show, movie, you check out the conditions first.

You change words in songs to: soaring, flying, gliding, etc...

A To Site driving:flying time ratio of 10/1, 20/1, ++/1 seems: ok, fine, and so?

On light winds days, you play a variation of "Name that tune" game as in: "I can make that launch in 5 steps", "4 steps", "Make that launch!". "I can make that XC in 5 thermals", "4", etc...

You'll watch an hour long crummy show because there's a 10 second shot of a hang glider in it.

You try to make all your doctor or dentist appointments as early in the morning as possible.

You consider hiring a taxi for retrieval when you can't find a driver on a hot X-C day.

You recall every vacation that you took since taking up flying by looking in your logbook.

You root for any thermaling bird. You see a bird flying and you wonder what his glide ratio is.

You get offered a job with an airline and check to see if their bases are near any good sites before giving them a yes or no.

Your spouse/friend asks you what's more important, the relationship or flying, and then you get in trouble for the long pause before you answer.

Your flying gear is worth more than your car/truck.

The truck tool kit includes a saw and a coil of climbing rope.

The strength of conditions correlates with frequency of trips to the bathroom.

You don't take a vacation day until you see the Weather Channel.

You would only consider losing weight if it helps your wing loading.

You are concerned about your fitness not for health reasons but for how many times you can get up the training hill.

You cannot look at a hill without trying to figure out what caddy wind direction it would best serve as launch.

Your wife says one day, "It's either me or that glider!!" and today you pay alimony.

You bump grandma off your autodialer because another site just got a weather station.

You give grandma a hang gliding T-shirt for her birthday, knowing that she won't like it, and will give it back to you.

You work nights so you'll have days open for flying. This also means you can sleep in your car in the LZ, so as to not miss the next truck up the hill. You have an extra glider that you leave stashed at takeoff, so that if the road is too muddy, you can still hike up and fly.

You have a telescope at work so you can see gliders at launch.

Sitting in a car on TO with the wind blowing a hoolie trying to convince yourself its slackening as the trees/bushes aren't thrashing about as much.

Your CFI kills the engine enroute on a cross country, and you try & work a thermal.

You wish Trivial Pursuit would have categories like: soaring, weather, cloud names, 4X4's, Mountains.

When having sex, all you do is "pull-in" & "push-out"!.

You want to kill anyone who calls you glider a kite.

You find it easier to identify birds of prey from above than from below.

You cancel your doctor or dentist appointments if it looks good in the morning and hope you don't regret that later.

You run red lights while driving because you're looking up at the cummies that are forming instead of the road.

One ray of sunshine on an otherwise overcast day has you running to the nearest window.

Raised relief topographical maps with XC routes get permanently mounted on your walls.

You make your Dad drive for you on his first visit after bypass surgery.

You keep the 2M in your truck on over lunch in the hopes of catching a vicarious thrill from pilots who can fly on weekdays.

The sight of a dust devil gives you sweaty palms and a pit in your stomach, then you realize you're pushing a cart in a grocery store parking lot.

As you drive to work, you look at the same empty lots over and over as you determine the best way to set up a landing approach.

Your living room decorations consist of a hang glider and harness bag.

Your living room decorations consist of multicoloured drogue chutes.

You pay more attention to the wind noise than to the person talking to you.

You run for your glider and gear first if your house catches fire.

When travelling by air, you get a window seat so you can look out and 'imagine' gladden' at 30,000 ft.

At the airport, you dream of a 747 Aero-tow with 30 gliders dragging behind.

You are more upset with your mailman about the wrinkle in the cover of your HG/PG Mag than when your Playboy arrived missing all the pictures.

You buy a vehicle based on its ability to support a H.Q. rack.

You keep your radio batteries fully charged in the dead of winter... just in case.

You know you spend too much time on hang-gliding-lists, but you can't force yourself to unsubscribe.

You let your spouse/friend win an argument when it's close to a good X-C day, so as not to lose your driver.

The thought of winning the lottery only produces daydreams of flying everyday.

You plunk down a dollar for a lottery ticket to purchase the above daydream.

When you forget where your hands end, and your wings start.

You run outside at the sound of an F-18 and jump up and down in the street yelling, "That's my taxes at work!".

You wonder where all the visiting pilots earn the money to take holidays at your flying sites. (And you still fix their headsets and PTT's for free!) You give pilots better discounts than pensioners.

While at work you watch the flyers at the local hill and hope they get up, while cursing them.

Your son is about to start his university course in aeronautical engineering, and all through dinner, you tell him what sort of hang glider you want him to design for his thesis.

Instead of watching TV like normal people, we have discussions about what HG's will be like in 5 years when he finishes university.

You think about getting a paper tablecloth so you can have lots of sketches with your dinner discussions.

You feel like cursing him when he puts your glider on the back side of the rack in the garage.

You delete names from your Nicknames list so that you don't have to go looking for "Hang Gliding List", and all the names on it are from the list anyway.

You spend hours stargazing, wishing there were thermals so you could fly at night.

You avoid the subject of closing for the holiday with your employees until you've seen the soaring forecast.

You forgot what your family use to have for lunch on Sundays.

You sleep with your harness on.

You keep glider spares and extra down tubes in your car permanently.

You're standing in front of a mirror shaving when you suddenly notice that your moustache has the same platform as your new diver... and then you start to wonder whether you subconsciously SHAVED it into that shape... and when you smile at that thought it looks like you pulled on the VG!

Your wife, who is still 55kgs and tremendously attractive, comes to you in a hot pink, topless teddy and starts nibbling on your shoulder and you tell her to hang on for a minute because the Weather Channel is about to talk about Geelong.