Hang Gliding

Coroner's officials Saturday identified a 49-year-old man who was killed in a hang-gliding accident the day before when he crashed into the rocky side of a riverbed. Jeffrey Scott Craig of Lakewood suffered multiple fractures and blunt force trauma in the accident, said Lt. Joe Bale of the Los Angeles County coroner's office. The accident occurred about 3:30 p.m. Friday in the 12600 block of Gridley Street. In the past, Craig had suffered a heart attack while hang gliding, Bale said.

RIO DE JANEIRO - "Should I use violence to restrain you if you want to buy too much?" my Italian roommate asked, seeing my enthusiasm for shopping manifest itself at a Brazilian kitchenware and china shop in Rio de Janeiro's Copacabana neighborhood. She was perfectly capable of this violence, just as I was capable of defending against it. We were in Rio last year as visiting female martial artists studying Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu with four-time world champion and famed Carioca Kyra Gracie.

THOSE PEOPLE interested in becoming involved in hang gliding are advised not to procrastinate indefinitely. The future of this uplifting but somewhat enigmatic sport that was born in California is in question. "We're at the zenith of the sport right now," says Ken de Russy, owner of the Hang Glider Emporium in Santa Barbara and veteran pilot and instructor. "I see an end to hang gliding here within 10 to 15 years, because of loss of access due to fear of litigation.

TIBET Slide show Mort Loveman will present "Tibet - Journey to the Center of the Universe. " When, where: 1 p.m. Wednesday at Roxbury Park Community Center, 471 S. Roxbury Drive, Beverly Hills. Admission, info: $1 for Beverly Hills residents; $2 for others. (310) 285-6840. ADVENTURE Hang gliding Learn the basics of hang gliding, including equipment. When, where: 7 p.m. Wednesday at the REI store in Arcadia, 214 N. Santa Anita Ave. Admission, info: Free.

A newspaper reporter working on a story about hang gliding and an instructor were killed Thursday when their glider plunged to the ground as it was being towed in preparation for release, officials said. The state Highway Patrol identified the victims as C. Scott Beyer, 36, the instructor, and his passenger, Nick Adams, 33, a feature writer for the Springfield News-Sun. Both lived in Yellow Springs.

Myron Newman deftly hoisted the triangular-shaped hang glider to his shoulder and paused to catch his breath before trotting down the hill. A smooth breeze lifted the hang glider a few inches off the ground, giving Newman a brief, exhilarating thrill he had never expected. Even after Newman landed at the base of the hill, the most difficult part of his first hang-gliding experience was still to come.

Bill Roecker overhears conversations between sun-bathers at Blacks Beach. And listens in on discussions between golfers lining up putts at Torrey Pines golf course. He can touch the ravens and red tails that fly over the cliffs at the Torrey Pines Gliderport. And explore the roofs of homes on Mt. Soledad. Airborne bugs are his neighbors. Cloud formations his guides. Medium-strength winds are an ally. Helicopters and radar-controlled planes a nemesis.

For centuries, people have fancied flight. But not until 1960--after the Wright Brothers took off, airplane travel mounted and orbiting the planet became a reality--did man achieve a flight this fancy. That was when three men from Sydney, Australia, devised a way for humans to soar like birds, to attain what Greek mythology described in "The Flight of Icarus." The men, Bill Bennett, John Dickenson and Bill Moyes, invented the hang glider.

Hang gliders liken Larry Tudor to a bird, and it seems obvious why. His skinny frame, particularly his scrawny legs, have a passerine quality. He fidgets constantly--shifting from foot to foot, folding his arms, tugging on his shirt--not unlike a sparrow nervously hopping across the sidewalk. His eyes constantly dart about as if watching for a stalking cat. Reserved and unassuming, he is as shy as a dove. But Tudor's real birdlike similarities appear when he takes wing.

It may seem contradictory, perhaps even sacrilegious, for someone employed by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena to be involved in hang gliding. After all, a glider's only propulsion comes from rising air currents and the pilot's running start. But after only three hours in a glider, JPL college intern Fabian Nicaise was hooked. "It really felt like flying," said Nicaise after a recent tandem flight with an instructor that reached a peak elevation of about 4,000 feet.

Francis Rogallo, an aeronautical engineer who was considered the father of modern hang-gliding and other recreational sports for inventing a flexible wing in 1948 that revolutionized nonpowered flight, has died. He was 97. Rogallo died Sept. 1 of natural causes at his home in Southern Shores, N.C., said Carol Sparks, a daughter. He was a researcher at what is now the National Aeronautics and Space Administration who dreamed of coming up with an affordable way for people to fly, his daughter said.

Coroner's officials Saturday identified a 49-year-old man who was killed in a hang-gliding accident the day before when he crashed into the rocky side of a riverbed. Jeffrey Scott Craig of Lakewood suffered multiple fractures and blunt force trauma in the accident, said Lt. Joe Bale of the Los Angeles County coroner's office. The accident occurred about 3:30 p.m. Friday in the 12600 block of Gridley Street. In the past, Craig had suffered a heart attack while hang gliding, Bale said.

THE rules of the Red Bull X-Alps challenge are right there on the beverage maker's website: Go to Austria's Dachstein Glacier. Fly a paraglider west as far as possible in the turbulent air high over the Alps, land wherever you can. Walk most of the night carrying a 45-pound pack containing paraglider gear. Hike a mile up the nearest peak with the glider on your back, take off, and repeat until reaching the beaches of Monaco, 528 miles away. For two weeks beginning Aug.

Bill Bennett, an Australian who introduced the modern controllable hang glider to the United States in 1969 and helped popularize the fledgling sport through exhibitions and publicity stunts, has died. He was 73. Bennett, nicknamed the "Birdman," at one time owned Delta Wing Kites and Gliders in Van Nuys, believed to be the world's largest hang glider manufacturing company. He died Oct. 7 in an ultralight accident at Lake Havasu City Airport in Arizona, said Margo Brown, his fiancee.

Hang gliders search for thermals the way surfers hunt for waves. They read the conditions for telltale signs: spiraling buzzards, dust devils, cumulus clouds towering above the haze. The rising warm air lifts them by their Dacron wings. Aloft, circling with the swifts, altimeters beeping, giddy from hypoxia, they are singing alone and aloud in the open sky. But inevitably the updrafts wane.

The men and women stood on the bluff in admiration of flight. Not the flight of planes or birds, but of people who fly without the gift of wings or the burden of engines. This group of hang gliders--including the pioneers of the sport--gathered Saturday at Dockweiler State Beach for a reunion celebrating three decades of flying over these local sands.

Maralys Wills, a Lemon Heights mother of six, never thought she'd lose a son to hang gliding. Certainly not Eric, her "affable, non-daring" third son. So Wills was all the more stunned when the phone rang that March morning in 1974 and one of her son's friends informed her in a hoarse and strained voice that 20-year-old Eric, a hang-gliding novice, had been in an accident--that, in fact, he was "D.O.A." "I stood rooted to the spot," Wills writes. "Uncomprehending. Refusing to understand.

Edward Schellinger has been in training lately, dashing down the indoor corridor of his Newhall apartment building every day, trying to build up his ability to accelerate. But he does it at 5:30 a.m., "so nobody sees me because I look stupid," he said. "I run out of wind pretty quick." His training for a dash off 3,500-foot Kagel Mountain paid off Thursday.

Edward Schellinger has been in training lately, dashing down the indoor corridor of his Newhall apartment building every day, trying to build up his ability to accelerate. But he does it at 5:30 a.m., "so nobody sees me because I look stupid," he said. "I run out of wind pretty quick." His training for a dash off 3,500-foot Kagel Mountain paid off Thursday.

In the most ambitious project of its kind, city parks officials proposed Wednesday a $25-million transformation of the Hansen Dam Recreation Area into a major sports and recreation facility for the region.