Magic Wings

by Alden Moffatt

  I pulled in on the control bar as far as I could and dove toward the gully, chattering and bouncing as I sped along. When I reached my destination I had again lost a few feet of elevation. I looked at the variometer for any sign of sinking air. And in a very small area, where I now crisscrossed, I centered on a tiny sinkhole. Then I cranked my glider sideways until one wing pointed straight at the ground and the other pointed straight at outer space and I raced downward, spinning in tight circles while the wing wires and sail of the glider stretched to their limit and my body contorted in the increasing gravity.

  I made circle after circle, in dizzying procession, until the ground was nearly touching my wing tip, then I forced the glider to level out and pulled in on the control bar again so I could not regain any altitude as I zoomed toward the landing pasture. The glider vibrated and I gritted my teeth until I thought they would crumble.

  How could I set the glider down safely now in that turbulence and with the world flying by at the speed of the traffic on the highway, which was not far now below me? Surely my situation could not end happily, I thought. The wind was howling in the field now and the wind flag was whipping back and fourth furiously. As I charged over a row of trees and above my car which was parked at one end of the field, I saw a couple of hawks still there, lifting then folding their wings and diving. They were fighting with the powerful lift, I could see now, just like I was.

  With the glider pitching in all directions, I took aim at the center of the field, between two large groups of cows which were standing around on the brown, clipped grass. I took one final turn at fifty feet up and dove the glider with all my might, sliding down to where my feet could feel the dry grass rushing by. I wanted to be even closer to the ground, so I dragged my feet and then touched down on the control bar wheels with my belly dragging across the pasture. The glider rolled along, bouncing across the ground until it came to a stop. I lay there for a minute catching my breath.

  Moo, said a cow. My hands and face were covered with dung from a fresh cow pie I had slid across. I looked at my harness, covered with dung. And I stood up then, and shook off as much as I could. “Man.” I looked at the cows. “You guys are disgusting” I mumbled.

  “Moo.”

  I was alive.

  Intermediate Syndrome

  Gravity is an illusion, a trick played upon us. It makes us work harder for everything, but in outer space, if there was a gravitational force, and no Earth inside of it, what bad would come of being attracted toward the center of it. Neither gravity or Earth could exist without the other. Mass and force are as interwoven as the human endeavor to fly is interwoven with the apparent weight of things close to the ground. There wouldn't be much reason to fly if we were weightless, and maybe we wouldn't bother to try if we weren't afraid of it.

  When you're driving to a place with the intent to fly, you're bound to ponder a little on why you want to. Now we were driving to the cliff launch at Lost Creek Lake. And then we were there, setting up hang gliders at the edge of a cliff and the wind was coming up the cliff face nicely at about five or six miles an hour. I could smell the fresh, pine laden breeze. I could see the spectacular mountain view and the blue lake with all its boats and rafts pokadotting the surface. The back of the dam, miles away, made a horseshoe above the valley where the river used to drain out.

  I looked at the view and the vastness of it made me inspired, but wary. I was going to go sailing in the vast ocean above the lake. Anyone who has ever set to sea has been awed by it. Launching into it is a dangerous first step to make. It's a serious commitment. Once you're in that ocean there's no turning back.

  We unloaded the twenty foot long bags, each containing a neatly folded glider, from the truck and carried them behind a row or trees. I unfolded my glider and soon its 22 pieces of aluminum and its fifty feet of stainless steel cable and its bulky triangle of carefully stitched dacron were stretched into a magnificent wing. I inspected it thoroughly.

  Then I went to sit on the rocks at the edge of the cliff to accustom myself to the vastness, the exposure, to analyze the wind. Shortly I wasn't thinking about flying, but was simply enjoying the view and the cool, mountaintop summer sun. There were flowers twittering on the edge of the rocks, fluttering in the wind. There seemed no reason to intentionally get upset about anything.

  I shouldn't have sat there waiting on such a comfortable afternoon. The sun made me feel lazy. I felt like I was invisible, like the breeze and the sunshine was passing right through me. I could not feel the gravity. I should have strapped on my flight suit and I should have flown. That's what I came there to do. Instead I waited and was lulled by the day. A part of me was sleeping, soothed by the green-blue water below and the soft blue sky. I thought about the drifting boats, people in them rocking in the gentle waves; the old men with their grandchildren fishing; the women sleeping on the decks of the boats, sun shining on their skin. The sun and the smells were alluring. How could one help becoming a creature of it?

  Stormy went to the truck and brought over a couple of beers. He handed one to me. I could have refused. I could have said something about how drinking before a flight was unwise. But it was only one beer and I took it without a word. It was cold and bubbly.

  "So what are you waiting for?" said Stormy who had also set up his glider. "A little more wind and we'll be stuck on the ground. You know how it can get stronger all of a sudden. Or if the wind stops, well, you're stuck on the ground then too." He sipped his beer. "You can't just dive over the cliff if there ain't nothing to hold you up. You'll stall the glider and look like an arrow diving for the rocks."

  "I'm enjoying the view and the beer. Maybe I'd rather be in one of those boats today. You seem kind of gung ho, Stormy. How come you're not getting ready to launch. Looks pretty perfect," I said. "I mean, aside from the fact that there's probably no lift yet."

  "I'm just gonna belt this down and I'm outta here."

  Duke had finished setting up his glider and was silently hooking himself to the hang strap with a caribeener. "You guys are going to miss out," he said as he shimmied the glider toward the launch rock. There was only twenty feet between the cliff face and a deep forest behind us. It was a tight squeeze getting a glider moved from the setup area to the launch. Duke kept on shimmying sideways toward us, taking a few steps then setting the heavy glider down to catch his breath. "I came here to fly. You guys obviously came here to party. Could you drive down and pick me up in an hour?" he said sarcastically. "It doesn't look like a very lifty day. But I'd rather fly down than choke on all that road dust like we did driving up."

  Stormy and I moved aside a bit to make room for the glider, so Duke could line up on the launch. There was a trail there, about ten feet long, and then it disappeared over the cliff. Duke backed up as far as he could until the glider was almost touching a tree.

  Stormy had tied two pieces of red survey ribbon to a bush on the edge of the cliff for wind flags. They blew straight up.

  "Keep the nose of the glider low," commanded Stormy. He looked at me. "Duke always points the glider straight out. Someday he's gonna stall. You keep the nose down," Stormy scolded Duke.

  "You're like a kid who never cleans his room yelling at his dad for making a mess in the shop," Duke scolded back. "Clean up your own style. I can't believe you drink beer before you fly."

  "Hey, man," said Stormy. "Who says I'm gonna fly? I just came here to look at the view and watch you guys sink out."

  I looked at the beer in my hand then drank the rest of it.

  Duke was lined up on the launch, backed up against the forest as far as he could go. Stormy and I were squatted low on each side of his glider so as not to get in the way of his launch. Duke's control frame was resting on the ground and, from under the glider, he was looking carefully at the flags fluttering upward.

  Duke said "I wish it was a little stronger. This place is fickle as hell. It's too strong or it's too weak."

  "There's no way it's going to hold you up," sa
id Stormy. "We'll be watching you land in five minutes."

  "I'm well aware of that," snarled Duke. "But it hasn't gotten any stronger since we got here. If anything the wind's dying. I don't feel like looking at that dirt road for another eight miles. Fuck it!" he said as he lifted the glider up. "You guys have fun driving down." Duke ran as fast as he could and he kept on running even after his feet were off the edge of the cliff.

  The glider drifted out into empty air in a straight line, not rising or falling or rocking from side to side. Neither Stormy or I were very excited by what we saw. The scenery was beautiful, but, just as we had expected, there wasn't much lift. Duke and his glider disappeared around a corner after crossing a fairly flat part of the mountain at the base of the cliff. I walked over to a point where I could watch him get smaller in the distance. He flew over a series of huge hot rock where there might be thermal updrafts. He made a few circles in a thermal, went up a little bit then back down. Soon he gave up the effort and drifted away toward the landing area, a large field perched on a lava bench on the side of the Rogue River canyon. When he was getting close to landing, I quit watching and walked back to the launch. Stormy had strapped on his glider and had moved it there. He was kneeling on the ground under the wing with his helmet in front of his knees.

  "Well," he said. "The keys are in the truck. Seems like the wind is getting lighter. I guess I don't want to drive down either."

  "So why don't people fly off that bare hillside over there?" I pointed to a steep field of grass a quarter mile further north along the ridge we were launching from. "Seems like you could pick your launch conditions a lot better if there wasn't a sheer cliff to deal with. I mean, I'd rather see ten miles an hour of wind rising out of the valley. But with that amount of wind, this cliff launch would rip the control bar right out of your hands as soon as you got to the edge."

  "I've never driven out there. I don't know if the road goes that far. This is where we've always launched and it works pretty well sometimes. I've had some great flights over this mountain. Today is not the day, though. Obviously," he said, disgruntled. "Like I said, the keys are in the truck. See you in a bit." Stormy put on his helmet and lifted up the glider. He waited for the flags to twitter skyward. The air was now becoming inconsistent and sometimes the flags would go limp. But in a minute, he ran toward the cliff, glider overhead, and followed Duke's path through the air and around the corner.

  I didn't bother to watch. I was alone now. My glider was all set up. I looked at it, parked in a small clearing under the forest, next to where some campers had made a bon fire. The fire was out. It must be nice to camp out here, I thought. You could choose any calm, beautiful day in summer and make a bon fire there in the evening and watch the sunset then the stars shining like fireworks over the silvery lake. Why did I choose to fly? We spent two hours getting there and would spend two more driving home, and all for a five minute flight over country we could see from right there on the mountain top. And that day I was just going to drive down the hill without even trying to find a thermal, it appeared. I would not be smiling when I got home. I would not have a story to tell. My wife would hate me for wasting a day.

  "You should have tilled the garden and fixed the sink," she would say.

  "I am not going to drive that truck down!" I thought. The idea of it really made me agitated. "Those guys aren't just going to cruise on down in a few short minutes and wait in the field under a tree while I chauffeur the truck to them," I said to myself. "No! We're in this thing together and I'm going to fly too. We'll shuttle the trucks together."

  I looked at the wind flags fluttering now and then, sometimes lying limp. "I'd better hurry up and fly," I mumbled. The wind was dying. The air was becoming stuffy. "I hate twitchy wind!" I muttered as I put on my flight suit and struggled to snap the strap across my back. In my suit, I waddled over to the glider and looked at it carefully once again to make sure it was set up right. Everything seemed OK. I got under the glider and clipped myself to the strap at the center point on the wing, snapping and locking the caribeener. Then I squatted there, put on my sun glasses and helmet. I lifted up the glider and shimmied sideways over toward the launch.

  "You are nuts," a voice inside of me said. "The wind is almost gone. The air is stagnant."

  I was listening to the voice, but my feet were still shimmying the glider over, between the cliff and the trees, toward the ten foot long path that ended at the edge, where I would, hopefully, become airborne. I was not feeling very good. My stomach had a knot in it now. As I had so often, I was going to take the plunge. It was automatic. I had no control, no matter how stupid or frightening it was. It was my fate.

  Grip the control frame hard and keep the nose down, I told myself as I lined up on the launch path. I looked forward at the edge, the last rock with the last footprint. "Goddamn wind!" I thought. "Next weekend I'm going camping!" I looked at the drop-off and thought about hurling myself over it. My eyes winced shut and I turned my head away. Then I peeked sideways toward the launch, just a little. "Damn! Well, here goes."

  My fate was sealed. The flags twittered upward just a little, lightly skyward, barely blowing. I sprinted over the cliff, pushing off the last rock with all my might. The wing did not lift up and was still weighted solidly on my shoulders as I plunged over the cliff face. I tucked into a fetal position and jammed the control bar back as far as I could, trying to gain speed and make the glider fly. I raced straight down the face of the cliff like a skydiver. The rocks were five feet away from my knees as I hurtled down.

  I did not have a sense that the glider would fly but I had to round out and try to put my weight on it. The bottom of the cliff was approaching fast I would crash anyway, if it didn't fly. I began to push out and the wing began to stretch. The glider flattened out and I zoomed over the treetops.

  But my challenge was not over. The treetops were twenty feet below me, then ten.

  I was flying fast. I was angling down too much. The mountain was not dropping away fast enough. I had to push the control bar forward more, but I knew that, to do so was to risk stalling the glider.

  I had lost my ability to analyze my situation. Everything was happening too fast. Watching the cliff face had made my body saturate with adrenalin and I was in no condition to figure out what would be the right thing to do. I decided to let go of the control bar and let it find its own speed. The glide slowed to what seemed a crawl, but it was not stalling. I put my hands gently back on the bar and thought, if that doesn't work, I'm history.

  My feet and belly were nearly dragging across the treetops. There was a string hanging down from my harness that I was afraid would snag on one of the trees and sling me down into the forest. Then luck came along and a light puff of wind lifted me up ten feet. I thought I may have survived.

  The scenery opened up a little and I could look around. I had lost a lot of elevation because of the steep launch and I was way below where I should have been. I still had to make it around a high spot on a side ridge and I was a little below where I needed to be. If I couldn't find some lift and fly over the ridge, I would have to land far out in the boonies, miles from the road. It might be a days walk to get back to safety. I was feeling grim. This day was a disaster, I thought.

  I flew toward the ridge thinking I would try to land in a brush patch there if nothing lifted me over it. My glider would be wrecked if I landed there, but I would probably walk away. I watched the trees come closer once again. They got so close that I could not have turned the glider. The high spot was a fairly flat, tree covered ridge just to the south of our launch. It divided two gullies that carved the mountain. The main ridge was indented by shallow gullies, each with a basalt cliff perched at the ridge line.

  Suddenly, from the brush patch where I thought to land, there was a thermal. My wing started to soar, not very much, but enough to lift me out of the shallow bowl and over the ridge. I breathed a deep sigh of relief. From there I could simply cruise along the long ridge to the landi
ng area. The huge rocks along the ridge did not produce any lift for me that day. And I probably would have flown right through the lift if it was there. I had survived again, but I knew too well that I had pushed the limit too far. I had succumbed to intermediate syndrome.

  The summer day was stable and warm as I moved through it. The huge vat of air entrapped around the Earth was not moving. The lake was a mile away and very far below. I was a tiny speck and the people in the boats probably couldn't have seen me, but I was glad to still be there to look at the scenery. The lake was still and glassy. I dropped steadily as I cruised silently along the two mile invisible path to the LZ. Duke and Stormy had already dismantled their gliders. I landed safely and together we drove back up the dusty road to retrieve the other truck.

  Herd peak gale

  A month went by. I flew a few quiet, uneventful and peaceful flights at Woodrat, carefully choosing to fly in the evening when the air would be fairly uneventful. My heart couldn't have taken another flight like the one at Lost Creek Lake.

  Duke and I joined up and drove over the pass into the Shasta Valley in mid-September on the way to fly at Herd Peak again. It was a weekend and Duke, as usual, had made up his mind a few days before that Herd Peak was going to be the best place to fly on his days off. I had decided to go along with his plan to be friendly, and the weather did look like a nice flight there might be possible. The wind was supposed to be from the southwest at ten to fifteen and, though it was overcast in the Rogue Valley, the cloud cover was scattered in the Shasta Valley. By 11AM we had driven an hour and were on the last stretch of highway before turning off on a dirt road that led to the LZ. Duke was driving his red truck with his glider on it, and I was driving my red truck with my glider on that, right behind him. We needed two rigs because we didn't have a driver and it would be very difficult to walk back to the launch at Herd to retrieve our vehicle.