For the children and younger adults, 2 instructors were assigned to each kite, holding a rope on each side and keeping the kite in rigid control. A beauteous run, if I must say so myself. My fifth and last turn, however, was a horse of a different color I finally felt completely in control, and I flared and planted my feet perfectly. These graceless landings did not hurt at all because of the soft sand, resulting only in a pained grin and bruised ego – and sand in my clothes, sneakers, and socks (how does it get THERE?) and grit in my mouth for the rest of the day. For my first 4 turns, I failed to flare correctly and belly-flopped into the fortunately-fluffy sand once, my instructor gave me the dubious compliment of mine being the most graceful crash landing he has ever seen. Personally, this was the most challenging part. As you near the bottom of the dune, he shouts at you to flare by pushing full out and up on the bar, and if you do this correctly, your wings will angle steeply up, your body will move with the wings from parallel with the ground to perpendicular to it, and you will land nicely on your feet. He instructs you to either push out or pull in on the control bar, which is how you control the angle of your wings and therefore your speed and altitude. Your instructor runs alongside your kite, holding a rope attached to one of the wings to prevent the wind in your wings from lifting you too high. At your instructor’s signal, you begin to walk down the dune, then jog, then run – and after a few steps, you feel the strong lift of the kite, you elevate your legs, and suddenly you find yourself airborne! What exhilaration! You glide down the dune, 5-15 feet in the air. The kite feels like a restless pet pulling at its leash, ready to leap up into the turbulent air as soon as you release it to its will. Then, you stand up, holding the control bar – and you are amazed, thrilled, and also somewhat nervous, as you feel the kite straining and bucking in the strong wind coming off the ocean onto the dunes. The control bar of the kite is now just beneath your chest, and you hold onto this bar while the instructor talks you through what’s called a “hang check” to make sure your harness is secure. A turn consists of the following: First, you harness yourself solo into a hang glider (a “kite,” they call it), which puts you in a prone position parallel to and a few inches above the ground. Each person took five turns, alternating with the other members of his or her group. There were a total of 4 instructors, each of them outstanding in hang gliding skill as well in child and adult psychology – Alex, Robert, Alan, and Willy were great with adults and children alike, motivating and reassuring all of us, calming everyone who was nervous (terrified?) of hang gliding. After climbing up to the top of a high, steep sand dune, we were divided into three groups – Group One for the smaller children, Group Two for the older children and younger adults, and Group Three for the slightly-less-young adults. The hands-on lessons on the dunes were great. This is a complimentary service subject to the rangers’ availability, and we were fortunate and deeply grateful that they were able to drive our parents onto the dunes – our parents loved watching all of their children and grandchildren hang glide while they sat there like a king and queen in beach chairs at the top of the tallest natural dunes on the eastern seaboard! However, the state park ranger service has 4x4 jeeps and, by special request, preferably in advance, they can drive onto the dunes people who cannot walk there on their own. Incidentally, the 2 members of our group who did not participate were our older parents our father has difficulty walking, and our mother wanted to stay with him. Following ground school, each hang glider in our group was outfitted with a helmet and a harness, and we walked to the sand dunes, about a 15-minute strenuous uphill trudge through the powdery sand. We started with an indoor ground school in a classroom, which lasted for about 45 minutes, included a mini-lecture by a terrific instructor named Alex, and was entertaining, informative, and child-friendly. 16 of the 18 family members in our group participated, including two 6-year-old children, two 8-year-olds, two 11-year-olds, a 14-year-old, a 17-year-old, and 8 adults. On our first hang gliding day, we took lessons on the dunes of Jockey’s Ridge State Park in Nags Head. We had a fantastic, uplifting hang gliding experience with Kitty Hawk Kites during two of our vacation days on the Outer Banks – we stayed in Corolla for a week with our extended family in celebration of our parents’ 50th wedding anniversary.
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