Human beings have been fascinated with the idea of flying since antiquity. Even in the modern age of jet travel and space shuttles, we have not lost our private dream of personal, unencumbered flight. We have created our own myths of flying heroes Peter Pan, Superman, ET. But the ability to fly is not limited to mythology. It forms an age-old heritage of humanity.

We cannot speak about the history of freeflight without a mention about Otto Lillienthal the hero of human aviation who made his first successful glide on bat like wings in 1889. Lilienthal was a successful German engineer who developed hang gliders. His stature as an engineer and his success with fixed-wing gliders paved the way for others who were interested in aviation, and his advocacy of developing gliders before powered machines led the Wrights to pursue the same strategy. He developed nineteen different gliders, which were usually flown from an artificial conical hill he constructed at Lichterfelde near Berlin.

In 1896 we lost Otto, the grandfather of flight. By this date the strapping, black –bearded German had flown over 2000 successful weight shift controlled glides, constructed 5 monoplanes and 2 biplanes, built a 50’hill so he could take off regardless of wind, and envisioned the whole hang gliding movement. As he lay dying, downed in severely gusty conditions, he said smiling, “sacrifices must be made, the dream has begun, carry on!”

Modern History

In the 1940’s on the East Coast of America, just down the road from the site of the Wright brother’s first successful flights – another aviation pioneer was conducting experiments with kites made of pieces of curtain material. After much persuasion Dr. Francis Rogallo’s work was followed up by his employers, the North American Space Administration and in 1948 he filed for a patent for his flexible Delta kite.

Rogallo’s wing was utilised by several latter day aviation pioneers. Some of the earliest exponents of hang gliding (so called because, in those days you literally had to hang on by your armpits) made their wings from bamboo, polythene and sticky tape. Not surprisingly, the golden rule was never to fly higher than you care to fall.

Very soon, the machines were being made of stronger stuff and as early as 1961 tom Purcell Junior was tow-launched on a Rogallo wing in the USA.

Meanwhile in the UK Walter Newmark was flying new types of parachute, designed by Lemoigne and Pioneer, which were capable of far superior performance and control than existing types. Even back in 1961 Neumark, a sailplane pilot, could envisage a self-inflating parachute being used for soaring flight, shortly afterwards, he wrote a manual, for Operational procedures ascending parachutes, and training began in what was to become known as parascending. And towing ram air parachutes became the passion of a group who formed the British Association of Parascending (BAPC) in the early 70’s.

It was not until about 1980 that parachutes were foot-launched regularly from hills. At first it was a minority of pilots, mostly in the French and Swiss Alps who began to emulate the hang glider pilots by launching from the steep slopes with their ram-air rigs, but the sport was to grow with surprising speed.

What is significant is the sheer number of people who are attracted to the sport; in Alpine countries they number a few hundred thousands, and the activity is growing very rapidly in places as diverse as the UK, Australia, North and South America, India, and the Far East.

In the UK the sport is administered solely by the British Hang-gliding and Paragliding Association (BHPA), In America by the United States Hang Gliding and Paragliding Association (USHGA), in Canada by the HPAC, BCHPA.

Currently in India paragliding is a free sport. There is no governing body nor are licenses required for flying a paraglider in India.

Free flying history | Free flying myths | Leonardo da Vinci