Photo by Brandon Peterson
Drea ming of
Fligh t by C y
H
ang gliding keeps me awake. Even though my body is tired from hauling the hang glider up the sand training hill, it always takes a long time for my mind to calm down and get ready for sleep after a day at the beach. I started learning to fly in 2008, the year I turned 50. My daughter Erika started in 2007 when she was 17, and she’d made several solos before I decided she was having way too much fun and realized I The author's daughter, pilot Erika Klein, is featured in the USHPA iPad App HANG GLIDING, available in the Apple App Store.
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HANG GLIDING & PARAGLIDING MAGAZINE
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would rather be in the air with her than providing ground support and listening to her stories of flying with the birds. (If you are interested, you can read about her learning to fly in the March 2009 edition of this magazine). Even though I soloed at Kagel Mountain in December 2010 and fly high when I can, I still love to practice on the training hill at Dockweiler State Beach, just south of LAX. I try to get there on a weekly basis to help Greg DeWolf, beach instructor extraordinaire, with new students, paperwork, glider repair and site maintenance, as well as take time to talk with folks walking by on the bike path, or do whatever needs doing. Of course, this includes my taking some flights and practicing skills in a relatively safe,
low-stress environment. Being around other people interested in learning to fly feeds my enthusiasm and being at the beach in the fresh sea air, getting great exercise, hanging with cool people just flat keeps me sane! I am a very thorough hang-2 student pilot (some would say “overly cautious,” but I prefer thorough). While many students who started long after I did now fly circles around me, I am content to learn at my own pace and practice each skill in a variety of circumstances. I am blessed that Joe Greblo and Andy Beem of Windsports Hang Gliding are totally patient with my slow but steady progress at the mountain. The beauty of the training hill for me is that I can practice a particular skill several times in a row, since the beach is almost always flyable.