Hang Gliding: The Not So Extreme Sports and a Case For Deckchair Aviation

Many of us have been inspired to fly, but for some reason, the burdens of life or circumstances have stopped us.

Once, I wanted to learn how to hang glide. I attended an initial primer near my home city of Perth, but was sorely disappointed by what I saw. Without naming the company (yet it was the only one in my state), we faced multiple problems. Bad weather, equipment was broken often – I watched the hang gliding school repairing equipment out in the flight areas. Instructors were late. It was a combination of things both controllable and uncontrollable that turned me off the scene.

I spent a total of five days baking in the hot Australian sun, with little heat tornadoes spawning around me. I’d only actually paid for two days. The chief instructor had attempted to “make things right” by simply giving me another chance to come along for “free”. The end solution was always the same. I got nothing - I never flew. Five days in the blazing and unfiltered Australian sun had left me with nothing except roughly 10 minutes experience of hang gliding.

Hang Gliding: The Not So Extreme Sports

Hang gliding gives us an extreme example of the problem faced by those wanting to participate in some of the more extreme and dangerous sports. Frequently, there are heavy regulations and laws that surround many of these sports. Hence a large amount of time is required in teaching health and safety. The problem is, this is often done by ‘extreme sports dudes’ who are not business focused, and are often doing these jobs as moonlighting operations, before heading back to the city to stack shelves in K-Mart to pay their bills. The teaching is often slow and poor, and the practical aspects of the operation are marred by poor preparation on the part of the businessman (read: extreme sports dude) that you have chosen to engage.

How Did it Get This Way?

The reality is that the true buzz was to be had by the innovators of these individual activities. For example, the people who put together the first hang gliders. These people experienced the inventive rush of creating themselves a set of wings! Then they got to use them to fly. Sure, a whole lot of people got hurt but they experienced freedom, exchanged ideas with their buddies and perfected it down to the reasonably safe activity that is hang gliding today. Somewhere along the line the government decided to regulate it, and then somewhere later along the line the aforementioned “extreme sports dude” managed to win himself a little monopoly on the market.
And that’s the situation.

The Solution

Lawnchair Larry showed the world one day how we could fly in a normal garden chair with a lot of large helium-filled weather balloons attached. When Larry soared above San Pedro, he had achieved some kind of lifetime dream. Sure he had broken laws and posed some danger to society, especially with his choice to do what he did over a populated city. You can read Larry’s full story on Wikipedia or an assortment of other sites. Compare Larry’s story with the one I told you about hang gliding above. Now, I’m not advocating for a minute that we don’t have the restrictions that currently exist. We need them, and the help reduce a lot of death and injury in society. I’m just saying that is it truly awesome, that every now and then, an individual breaks them.

This article brought to you by bathroomrenovationsperth.net and kitchenrenovationsperth.net and authored by Jacob Walker, a man given to fly one day.