January 18, 2018 • 41 mins
It’s a super 70s thing, sure, but hang gliding is a thrill ride for the ages. So strap in with Josh and Chuck and learn all about the earliest method of human flight, originally created by a German man who flew over 2000 times before dying in a crash!
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to Stuff you Should Know from how Stuff Works
dot Com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark,
and there's Charles W. Chuck Bryant, and there's Jerry Roland,
and as I said, there's me Josh Clark, which makes
(00:21):
this Stuff you Should Know a sore In addition, wow
soaring soaring Okay, the sore toe edition. I don't know
what that means either. It doesn't mean anything. It's just
kind of a sore toe is kind of the opposite
of soaring, you know, really drags you down to earth
(00:45):
because you think, like now I have to go to
like a urgent care center and get this toe checked
out and probably take some pills that make me throw up.
And it's just not like soaring high above the earth
on a hand glider, I imagine. And I've never hand glided,
of you, um no, but I've had a sword too,
so so you know, so do you have any desire
(01:10):
to hang glide after this? Because I gotta tell you, man,
I got kind of jazzed about the idea of trying
it from researching this article. Not really, no, so like
if you were somewhere on vacation and they had like
hand gliding lessons as part of the place you were staying.
Would you like go over and try it, you think,
(01:31):
or you just absolutely aren't enthused by it at all. Yeah,
it kind of depends, I guess on my mood and
what else is going on. I mean, I could see that.
I think that's fair. I wouldn't I wouldn't like seek
it out though. But if I was literally within fifty
ft of someone doing this right, and somebody picked you
up and put you into the hardest and I might
(01:52):
do it. But and I'm not afraid of it or anything.
It's just I don't know, I don't really care. Yeah, No,
I get that sense that you're not afraid of it.
I am terrified of heights, as you know. Um, but
this still sounds pretty appealing to me. Actually, I think
I might try it. I mean I used to do
repelling and stuff like that. So oh yeah, with your
dad right down Stone Mountain, they'll let you do that.
(02:18):
I thought they might. So hand gliding is what we're
talking about, Chuck. And it turns out this article, this
is an old school, old school how stuff works article,
which were really weird in a lot of different ways. Um,
But once we kind of dug in. We've we found that,
like the topic is actually a little more interesting than
(02:41):
the house Stuff Works article would lead someone to believe, Yeah,
it's a little dry, just his head bone dry, and
this is a Freud and Rich joint. He knows what
he's doing. He's got a PhD after his name. But
I think it was the culture of the age, you know, Like,
for example, in the article, he talks about a personal
(03:03):
experience hang gliding. You know exactly what I'm gonna say,
don't you. I don't know. I don't actually, so he
said that the place that he was taking this hand
gliding lesson is called Jockey's Ridge and it's a public park.
So he writes that, as you know, before they took
off the hand gliding instructor check to make sure that
(03:25):
our intended flight path was clear of obstacles and people
because it was a public park. That's like such a
two thousand one era how stuff works thing to mention
in an article. You know, yeah, I kind of found
myself skimming that part once I started reading it. There's
some good info in it, but yeah, the whole personal
experience thing, it just doesn't it doesn't click with me.
(03:45):
You know, so, um, hang gliding, should we should we
do a little history. I think we should do a
little bit of history because, like I said, it's kind
of interesting. Yeah, and this is one that you would
not Um. I was a little bit surprised to know
that NASA had anything to do with hang gliding, because
it seems like obviously those two things would be opposite
(04:06):
of one another, sort of like tow toe gliding sort
toe and storing. Yeah, it's like an s A T question,
it is. But there was an engineer for NASA named
Francis Rogelo, so you kind have had an idea in
the nineteen forties to use his Rogallo wing, uh, which
(04:30):
was I guess sort of a crude hang glider to
return space help return spacecraft to Earth. Yeah, instead of
a mere parachute, which is what I guess had been
used for a little while. Yeah. Like you know those
famous images of like the Gemini capsules coming back to
Earth and splashing down the ocean and they have like
a drag shoot you know that they're from Originally they're like,
(04:52):
what if we try this other thing? That's that will
be one day. The predecessor of the hang glider and
everyone said, what's the hang glider? And that person said,
just wait a little while. So Rigalo and his wife
actually were amateur aviation enthusiasts, and that's they were just
kind of doing this on the side. But when he
started working at NASA, they he said, hey, I've got
(05:14):
this idea. And it didn't pan out. But the the
the pictures of these tests that made it into magazines
captured the imagination of some people around the world all
at once. Different people who weren't in communication with one
another saw these pictures and thought, you know what, I
(05:35):
could do something with that. I could turn something like
that into like a personal, non motorized flight machine. And
they did. Yeah, But he was not the first person
to ever do stuff like this, because everyone, i think
has seen images of weirdos in the nineteenth century jumping
(05:56):
off of buildings with all manner of winged suits and
things like that, and one such guy, and that's just
the humans obsession with like literally flying themselves, like not
in a plane. There's also that it takes a certain
type though, if you think about it, like even today,
like somebody who says, wow, I'd really like to fly,
and someone who says wow, I'd really like to fly,
(06:17):
so I'm gonna spend ten years creating my own personal
flying machine. Those are two different people, yeah, for sure,
like the right brothers versus uh, this guy right exactly
that you've never heard of because he didn't do anything
otto lilienthal is that is that a good way to
pronounce that? Oh yeah, not this guy. This guy did
(06:38):
a lot. Yeah. Oh yeah, you're talking about the crackpots. Uh. Yeah.
He was a German engineer, obviously from that name, and
he was crazy about this stuff. And he literally did
over two thousand successful flights with these what they called
weight shift hand gliders, so hang gliders, where as you
(06:58):
will see, like the modern hang lider, you you shift
your weight to steer the thing, and he was he
was doing that in a kind of a crude way. Yeah,
he basically I mean like Leonardo da Vinci had like
some design for a hang glider. I don't know if
he's ever built, and the Chinese used to make criminals
hang glide for fun. But this is like the guy
(07:18):
who like actually went to the trouble of figuring out
how to make this right from his own designs, and
and like you said, two thousand successful flights. Is I mean,
that's that's proven technology, you know, so I say, and
I don't think it's just us, but Otto Lilienthal is
basically known as the father of hang gliding, the Opah. Yeah,
(07:43):
I guess OPA's grandfather. Yeah, but isn't that is that German? Yeah? Oh,
I thought that was Greek. Well I don't. It may
be Greek too, but I don't know. Opa is German
for uh. But you know, he did a good job.
Then the Rogue Rogallo machine or whatever they called it,
the Rogallo, the fantastic flying Rogallos came on the scene. Yeah,
(08:08):
but they apparently were not inspired by anything Lilienthal did.
His stuff really kind of fell to the wayside once
the Right Brothers started. You could see that a motorized flight, right,
Everybody's like, why would you want this thing when you
can just fly in a plane. And the Right Brothers
themselves experimented with hang gliders first and then um moved
on to two planes from their hang gliders. But by
(08:30):
this time, like the idea of hang gliding was was
dead and from what I understand, unknown to the Rigalos, Yeah,
we should totally do a right brothers show at some point.
I can't believe we haven't. I know there's a lot
out there. We will. Uh So flash forward some though
toe at the very hot party, the Auto Lilienthal anniversary
(08:54):
meet up in California. So he still had his people,
you know, I would guess the sort of early um
extreme stunt enthusiasts who held people like Otto Lilienthal Is
in high regard, and people came from all over the
place too to hang out and hang glide, I guess,
(09:16):
And that's where I think it was. Everyone sort of
points to that meet up that year is when the
reinvention of modern hang gliding came around, do you care
to say? I think so? And part of this that
So you've got alto Lilienthal, You've got the rigolos who
may or may not have been influenced by Lilienthal. And
then you've got a guy named Bruce Dickinson. No it's not,
(09:41):
he's the guy from John Dickinson and Australian Tom. No,
well this is Tom h Are there two of them?
Doug Dickinson? Was it Tom Dickinson? I mean that's what
this one article says. But okay, well I'm sure that
one's right. But so Tom Dickinson. I think he was
one of the ones who was inspired by those photos
(10:02):
of the Rigala wing from NASA and built his own
hand glider. And he created um like what you would
call um what's it called when you're like on a
your parasailing and you're being towed behind a boat parasailing. Okay,
So he invented basically that which later, to confuse things,
(10:23):
was reinvented in the eighties or rediscovered in the eighties
and became basically a separate but related sport to hang gliding.
But his designs for this paraglider early paraglider, was based
on the Rigala wing and basically improved it enough so
that other people said, hey, you know what, you could
turn this into what we call a foot launched hand glider.
(10:45):
And and by the early nineteen seventies it was under
it was it was the design had been improved enough that, yeah,
you could have like an invitational meetup of the crackpots
who are into this kind of thing back then, right,
And then a couple of years after that, a couple
of brothers named Bob and Chris wills Uh started Manufacturing
(11:05):
actually formed a company called Will's Wing, and by all accounts,
those dudes really really grew the sport in the early
to mid seventies because it's a very I mean, I know,
it's kind of been reborn now with these uh what
are they called, not solid wing or I guess you
could call him solid wing rigid Yeah, rigid wing. But
those early hand gliders, it's a very seventies sport, you know,
(11:30):
and they're so pretty in the seventies way to like
the colors they use. Yeah, for sure, love looking at
hand gliders looks like a catamaran sale up there, Yeah,
like a Hobie Cat or something. And you know, like
every I'm sure there was an episode of Chips where
one of them hand glided. They were it made its appearance,
It had its fingerprints all over seventies pop culture. Do
(11:51):
you remember, like back in the day on prices, right,
one of the standard um one of the standard prizes
was a Hobie Cat personal sailboat. Yeah, like anyone, You're like,
what am I going to do with that? In Texas? Right? Well,
I guess Texas has a shoreline though, look at me? Yeah,
there you go. How about Nebraska? Yeah, no shore line
(12:13):
of Nebraska. So by the seventies this thing had kind
of taken off, if you will forgive the unintended punt um,
and it's it's I don't have the impression that it's
like nearly as much of a craze today, even though
there have been major improvements like the rigid wing design.
(12:35):
It seems like it's the seventies and maybe the eighties
were the heyday, right. I get the feeling that today
it's sort of in that extreme sports category, especially with
these rigid wing But back in the seventies and eighties,
like dudes like my dad would probably go out and
give it a whirl right in his jeep. Yeah, absolutely,
(12:55):
Like my dad para glided or paras sailed on one
Florida trip one time, I remember, and in true like
my dad fashion was he was like, I'm the only
one doing this. It's like, I'm not gonna pay for
you guys to do it. The one but no way,
the one behind the boat. Mhmm. Yeah, Uman did that.
Once it got stuck up there for some reason, they
(13:16):
couldn't get her, like her and the friends she was
with down for a while, suck floating aloft. Yeah, well,
don't they just stop the boat and you come down.
I don't remember what the problem was, but there was
an issue that they couldn't like her her turn or
her ride or whatever, just kept going on and on
and on for some reason. I feel like the boat
didn't stop. They're like, I can't take my foot off
(13:37):
the gas. But by the way, and something you do
probably it's usually with the hand. I can't take my
hand off the gas. Yeah, exactly. There. So you want
to take a little break and then come back and
get into hang gliders themselves, Yeah, let's suit up. Okay, yeah, okay, man.
(14:15):
So hang gliders at its core an extremely simple machine, right,
and uh, it's actually a pretty clever one too, to
tell you the truth, I'm not quite sure. I can't
really put my finger on why I'm so jazzed about
the idea of trying it, but it's somewhere in here. Okay, Okay,
So you get the hang glider, which is basically an
(14:37):
air foil, right, yeah, and are we going to differentiate
a lot between the sort of the old school and
the and the new ones and the rigid wing. I
I looked up the difference and I didn't see a
terrible amount of difference. I saw that the rigid ones
have um they glide a lot longer, I think um
(15:00):
or they have like less of a sync rate. But
other than that, it's more of like a matter of
personal preference. And then you would train on the flexible
one for sure, So they still use flex wings. Okay,
I just wasn't. I had for some reason thought reddit
as sort of like the rigid wing took the place
of the flexible wing. No, I think it did not. Actually,
(15:20):
it's a different it's a modified design. And if you're
really really good at um at hand gliding, you you
may prefer the rigid, but you may also prefer the
flex you don't, you wouldn't necessarily graduate from one to
the other. And then the rigid didn't replace the flex wing,
all right, And just so people know for sure, we're
talking about the flexible wing. It's sort of that old
(15:43):
school hang glidder you think of that. Uh, it looks
like a modified parachute, and in fact it is like
a nylon parachute that you can hear kind of flapping
in the wind over some sort of aluminum frame. The
rigid wing is ordered the same but the fabric, it's
the wings themselves are it's just stiffer. It's not like
(16:09):
it's made out of wood or anything like that. It's
just like a stiffer um like the exoskeleton. I'm not
describing this very well. Once you bring the exo skeleton in,
it's all downhill from there. How would you describe the
rigid wing? So like it was, like you said, the
flex wing, it kind of flaps in the wind. It's
(16:30):
it's it covers a skeleton. But the rigid wing is
is virtually the same thing, but it has like struts, say,
woven into it that keeps it from flapping as much.
It makes it makes the fabric rigid. Yeah, and it's
like a pre fab wing you know that you would
load out of your car. Yeah. They're really tough to
(16:51):
travel with it from what I understand. As far as
like if you're flying somewhere on an airplane, you would
you would have to take your flexible wing pair and
glider like on an airplane. Yeah. Yeah, they disassemble really easily.
The like all of the joints are hinged, the tubes
pop out of one another. Um. The the actual um
(17:13):
fabric folds up and comes off and the wires, you know,
snap off. It's like whenever you're you're going to hang glide,
you want to put your thing, you want to assemble it,
and then you disassemble it when you're done. Yeah, And
they're like somewhere between forty seventy pounds, and from what
I can tell, the ones that way less are the
much more expensive ones because they might not even be
(17:36):
made out of aluminum. They may be made out of
something even light or like carbon fiber or something like that.
So the so, the whole, the whole point, whether you're
talking about and I don't really think we need to
get into two rigid wing just because it is just
a modified version of the flexible wing and the flexible
wings the one that everybody's familiar with. But with the
(17:56):
flexible wing, it's basically it's just a triangular skeleton made
of hollow aluminum aircraft grade aluminum tubes or carbon fiber tubes,
and you've basically got three um three tubes coming out
at one point. Did you ever take an art class
(18:18):
of drawing class? Nope, this can not make sense to you. Then,
well I've seen a hang glider though, Okay, well, so
if there's a point, if there's a the very front
tip of the triangle of that, that the that is
the hand glider. Then right the widow maker, the that's
(18:38):
the nose. Out of the nose, going directly back away
from you is a piece of metal, a tube called
the keel, yes, going at angles out of the nose
backward away from you as well. Those are the leading
edge tubes. And then about halfway back from the nose,
(19:03):
crossing the leading edge tubes and the keel connecting them all,
that's the crossbar. You have those four bars put together,
that's the basically the basic skeleton of the of the
hand glider. Okay, And if you haven't seen one of these,
just crawl out from under your rock, go to your laptop,
(19:25):
look at a picture of it. And you know, when
I was researching this, especially when Freud and Rich started
to get into the wires, the front wires and the
landing wires, and I was like, now I fully understand
what they mean when they say that a picture is
worth a thousand words. Like Freuden Rich could have spent
five thousand words explaining all this and he still wouldn't
(19:49):
have nailed it like a picture would it's just impossible
in a situation like this. Well, you've already explained more
than I would have. I would have just said, a
series of tubes and wires. Okay, So a series of
tubes connected, and then you've got the fabric covering that
you got wires having like holly, connecting everything um and
stabilizing it. And then the key to all of this,
(20:10):
there's a couple of keys. This is where it starts
to get fascinating. There's something called the control bar, right,
and the control bar is like a triangle that dangles
right in front of you when you're hanging from the
hand glider. And this is the thing that you you
have your hands on. It's it's how you control the
hand glidder, which is why it's called the control bar.
And then the next really essential piece, and I'll stop
(20:33):
after this, I promise, is the harness, which is suspended
from the keel above you, right behind where the control
bar hits the keel right, and so you are prone,
you're lying on your stomach when you're flying, and you're
hanging onto the control bar and you're dangling from the
hand glider above, which is why it's called hand gliding.
(20:55):
Because you're hanging from the hand glider. Fascinating it is,
and I imagine in the nineties seventies it seemed like
a fun idea when you're in Hawaii, we've had a
couple of rum drinks to uh to get in a suit,
throw on the helmet, strap into that harness and run
off the side of a cliff because that's how you used.
(21:18):
I mean, you can still launch like that, but it
looks like it's gotten a little more uh, like that's
fallen out of fashion a little bit, the run off
the cliff version. I don't know if that's true. Man,
I think that that's like, um, that you're an advanced
hand glider, that's probably how you're going to try it,
although you yeah, although you can't, I mean, you can't
do um, you know, like a dune or something like that.
(21:40):
It's really good for training or whatever. But they have
like I don't know if you call it, like a
launch ramp or something like that, but like some sort
of launch that they build onto the edges of cliffs
to run off of for hand gliding, and they're just
terrifying to even look at pictures of. Yeah, I mean,
i'd say I'm not scared to do it, but I'm
(22:01):
I imagine I would have some butterflies when you go
and run and jump off that thing, Right, I would too, man,
So don't feel bad. But you see people do it.
And my immediate thought is I'm gonna nose dive, But
you don't knows dive thanks to physics. Right, And do
you want to take a break and then get into
the physics. Yeah, we might as well hang gliding shock
(22:41):
all right, physics. So the reason a hang glider works
is because of its elegant lightweight design and the way
the air moves over these wings, and then all of
these other forces acting in concert with one another to
make sure you stay up there for as long as possible. Yeah.
So the first one we're talking about is lift. The
(23:04):
air goes over the surface of that wing, and that's
going to generate that lift when you run and you
jump off of that platform, and it's going to counter
the gravity. But gravity in this case is not bad
like gravity is actually going to be. While it does
want to pull you to Earth, it's what's making you
go forward continuing that airflow. Gravity is is your friend
(23:26):
in this case. Yeah, and then you've got drag, which
is really the the other one. Um, those three factors
together are what really applied to hang gliding, and drag
is what ultimately slows you down. It's you're running into
air molecules, and the faster you go, the more drag
you have, the more the faster you get slowed down,
which then brings in the syncrate, which is the speed
(23:51):
at which a hang glider starts to descend towards Earth.
It's measured in like feet per second in still air, okay, right,
and the distance it can travel is determined by something
called the glide ratio, which is the ratio of the
forward distance through the vertical distance dropped for forward distance
(24:12):
you've traveled to your to that drop rate. Yeah, so
like say every twenty four ft you move forward, you
drop like one ft downward. Right, So that's I mean,
that's really basically it for physics. But the hand gliding
would be like an entirely different sport if it weren't
(24:34):
for um, the ability to catch air currents. Yeah, it's
kind of all about that. Otherwise they would just be
pretty quick rides. They would be I mean, like it'd
be pretty awesome still, especially if you like you launched
off a cliff and then just kind of glided slowly
downward toward the toward the Earth. It's still be pretty cool,
but you can you can catch air currents if you
(24:55):
know what you're doing and stay aloft for hours and
go across parts entire parts of the country. As a
matter of fact, the um the record for the longest
distance traveled is like four hundred and seventy two miles,
so I think it's like seven kilometers. They basically what
(25:16):
these two dudes went from Lubbock, Texas to Nuevo Laredo
over the course of I think like eleven hours maybe
something like that. And the way that you do this
is that you go find these air currents, and there's
a couple of places you can reasonably expect you're going
to find upward lift from air, right, Yeah, hot air
(25:36):
is one way thermal lift. And that's like over a desert,
like hot sand or pavement prefer the hot sand over pavement,
or if it's super sunny. And and I get the
feeling that when the more experience you have, the more
you know how to how to look around your environment
to feel and see where this might be happening. Yeah,
(26:00):
Supposedly one way that they do it is to look
for birds that are just sitting there kind of soaring. Uh,
and you can just go catch that air column whatever
it is that they're soaring on. Right. That's one of
the most like relaxing things for me to see. Yeah,
there's a hawk, almost emotionless, just sort of floating. Now
imagine doing it yourself. Yeah, didn't that seem relaxing? I
(26:24):
think it sounds great. Yeah, No, I would. I would
enjoy it. I'm sure it's not gonna get through a
lot of effort to make it happen. Yeah, apparently I've
made it my mission to get you hang gliding for
some reason. And what it's a in the Chips episode,
you will have rigged my hang glider to cratch right,
poor Robert Pine. Uh. And then he's Robert Pine. He
(26:47):
was there like captain or sergeant. Yeah, great, great actor.
I can picture him immediately in my brain. Uh. And
then you've got something called ridge lift, and that's air
that's that's deflected up by um like a mountain or
a ridge, and the basically the topography of the ground
beneath you and around you. You can learn to read
(27:08):
that stuff and you know where these swells and columns
of air gonna be right. And when you when you
find these columns of air, these lifts, like, you don't
just fly into them and all of a sudden you're
up because they're actually usually fairly small. Um, so you
would basically fly right through them, maybe get a little
bit of lift, but then you just keep going and
start descending again. If you're going to catch an air
(27:30):
current and upward air current, you um basically want to
enter into a tight spiral, basically an upward corkscrew spiral.
You're you're following the air current upward. And to do this,
it's all just basically based on simple movements of your body.
That's the whole thing with steering and controlling a hand glider.
(27:53):
It all has to do with the different um adjustments
to the weight you're putting on the control bar at
triangle that's in front of you that you're hanging onto.
Yeah exactly. So um, you know you go left and right,
but I think literally shifting your body as it's hanging
and you go up and down by tipping and it's
(28:14):
you know, it may see encounterintuitive or who knows. Once
you're up there. It may seem like the right way
to do it, but in order to go up, you
tip the nose down, and then vice versa. Yeah, And
to tip the nose down, you pull the control bar
towards you, so you're shifting your weight forward, and when
you push put that that nose down, your trade again
(28:35):
some of your altitude. You know, you're you're basically creating
a nose dive, but just for just enough to to
speed up and then to slow down. You push the
control bar away from you, which tips the nose up,
which basically stops the um the glide of the glider.
It turns it. Yeah, it turns it into like a
(28:58):
piece of fabric trying to go forward through space rather
than something just cutting smoothly horizontally. It's it's starting, it's
now vertical in some way, and it slows it down.
And that's actually the way you land too. Apparently you
can land on your feet very gently. Once you're close
to the ground, you start to stall by pushing the
(29:19):
control bar away from you, That lifts the nose up,
cut your speed off, and then you just kind of
in a nice gentle trot, hit the ground and and
you say, I just hang glided. Yes, I think what
I would worry about for myself is that, um, some
of this stuff may not be intuitive or instinctive, and
I would do the wrong thing and then panic. So, uh,
(29:42):
that's actually a really good point. Um. This group called
Kitty Hawk Kites from North Carolina, which are actually sited
in the House to Works article, they had like a
really good tips for beginner's article as well, and they
say one of the things that you have to learn
is to remain calm, because it takes a bit of finesse.
(30:04):
From what I understand it takes. Um. You have to
you have to be able to very smoothly move your
weight around and if you're anxious and you're hanging onto
the control bar too too tight, your movements are going
to be kind of herky jerky, and it's it's not
a good way to hang glide. So you want to
be you want to be relaxed and controlled. And they
(30:26):
say that the best way to do this is to
have a few tandem lessons. First, I have a few drinks.
I would guess that. I don't know if they would
recommend that or not. Maybe yeah, and maybe one for
when you're up there too. But yeah, yeah, they're like
where'd you get that? But they offer like tandem lessons, right,
(30:49):
so you're you're on there next to somebody who is
an experienced hang glider and they're controlling and then they
can hand over the control the control bar to you,
but say, okay, now let's go left or let's go right,
And all that is is just shifting your weight left,
shifting your weight right, shifting your weight forward or backward
for up or down. It's as simple as that. But
(31:10):
I think remaining calm is a huge part of the
whole thing. That's a good point, yeah, for sure. Um
So if you're an experienced pilot, you might also have
some other gear up there with you, um, like in
a variometer, and this is what in a lot of
these you can hear, so you don't have to look
at it. It'll like, I guess it barks out. You know,
(31:33):
you're climbing in descent rate, which is pretty handy. Uh.
And then what's the other one the altimeter? Uh altimeter. Yeah,
that's the one that just tells you what your altitude
is called the altimeter altimet tear and you're gonna want
goggles and obviously the helmet. And I think if you
do these more, the higher up extreme things, you're gonna
(31:56):
also have a parachute. Yeah, when you're hitting thousands of feet. Yeah.
They say that most of the accidents that happened happened
on takeoff or landing, that it's rarely. Um, does somebody
just fall out of the sky even when they hit turbulence.
You're not gonna like just drop out of the sky
like a stone. Um, that's just not how aerodynamics works.
(32:17):
But you'll have a bumpy ride. It's more like you, um,
you hit a tree or you um like you feel
like you fall off the cliff, like you're your your
hand glider doesn't catch air right or something like that.
That that's usually on takeoff or landing when you when
you have a crash. Although I did see, um I
(32:39):
think it was might have and because that is of course,
looked up hand gliding deaths and um, this one guy
like fell out of his hand glider entirely, oh man
and went to the ground. Yeah, that would be That'd
be one way that it could happen too. And I
don't know if we said or not. Otto Lilienthal died
in a hand gliding crash. That's how he went, Oh,
(33:00):
I don't think I need that very appropriately, you know,
so um in reading Kittie hawk Kites description of you
know what what it feels like when you're learning how
to hang glide? So they hang glide on sand dunes,
which is virtually the same area that the Wright brothers
tried their stuff out on. And the reason why they
(33:21):
use sand dunes because there's a gentle slope for one,
but number two, if you fall, you fall into sand,
which is much more forgiving than, like you said, pavement. Right,
But when you're when you're hang gliding, when you're learning
how to do this, the whole point is, man, they
did such a good job describing me. And basically they said,
(33:41):
imagine you're running down a hill, right, and you don't
have a hang glider. You're just running downhill. Eventually you're
gonna pick up enough speed that your legs can't keep
up with it. Gravity is pulling you downward, and you're
gonna start tumbling downhill. So it's you you just crashed
running downhill, right, they said. With a hang glider, what
you're doing is you're running downhill and you're picking up
(34:03):
that same speed. But you're using the hang glider to
stabilize yourself so that your legs don't get ahead of yourself.
And if you can find that balance, and it just
takes a few times to practice this, well, probably several times,
but if you can find that balance to where you
can trust and stabilize yourself with the hang glider as
you're running down the slope, eventually the weight of your
(34:24):
body and the hand glider that you're holding, because remember
it ways up to about seventy pounds, the weight of
the two things starts to be transferred as the there
as lift is produced under the hand glider from the
bottoms of your feet to the straps of your harness,
and little by little that that weight is transferred and
eventually your feet are no longer making contact with the ground.
(34:47):
And I'll bet there's a cute few seconds where your
feet are just going through the area, you know, and
the it's now the straps holding you up and through
so it's the hang glider through the straps holding you up,
and you've just taken off and now you're so ring
but I would be like, I'm not ready yet, and
then then you just pull the pull back on the
control bar or push No, I'm sorry, you push forward
(35:07):
on the control bar, the nose would go up and
you'd you'd land after just you know, being a couple
of feet off the ground if you had your head
about you. But what they're saying is is like, even
if you never do catch air, as long as you
don't hesitate and you just keep you know, using the
hand glider to stabilize yourself, at the worst, you're gonna
just end up at the bottom of the hill having
(35:30):
run down there and never caught air. At best you
will have caught air right and you'll just taken off.
But the whole point with them is is that you're
training on sand, so even if you bite it, you're
still just in sand, so it's fine. All this explains though,
why they don't just say, okay, here's a cliff with
a lawn tramp run off. You have to know what
(35:50):
you're doing and it eventually you wanted to be You
wanted to go from a gradual transfer to a very
sudden transfer of weight from your feet to the strap
to the harness. Correct. Yeah, And then there's one other
way that you can do this too, and it's being
towed by a machine. Like Paris sailing right, you're being
(36:10):
towed by a boat. Well, I was reading this article
from I think, and people in Kansas they have nothing
to launch off of. But they were still in hang gliding,
so they were using tow trucks or not toe trucks,
pickup trucks. They just sit in the back of pickup
trucks with like a little cable attached to them, and
as the pickup chuck gain speed, there glider would start
(36:33):
to be picked up and they eventually disconnect themselves and
hang glide around. Kansas launched me a pickup of course,
it's Kansas awesome. It does not surprise me. No, that
makes sense. I think I might even feel a little
better about automobile doing the work for me. Oh really,
a pickup chuck? Well maybe, I mean, do they do
(36:56):
they just tell you around? Literally parasl styled. Do they
tell you to ord a Well, they don't have any
cliffs in Kansas. No, they don't. They don't have anything.
You're your your golden in that respect. The only cliffs
in Kansas are delivering your mail. Nice one, Um, I
have one more thing, You got anything else? I got
(37:16):
one more thing. So the earliest earliest hand gliding designs
didn't use a harness. It was like a hang glider
like you have, right, but you would run and then eventually,
like the hang glider would would just lift off and
you'd be dangling like a rock from the control bar,
hanging on for dear life. Rather than being connected by
(37:39):
a harness in a prone position. You would just be
hanging from like downward from the control bard. Yeah. I
mean it was nothing like the hang glider like experience
that we have now. They didn't last very long and
they didn't go very far and get very high. But
I think it's kind of like a zip line. Wow. Yeah,
(38:03):
so that's it. That's hang glider man. There you have it.
We're gonna go do it this uh this spring. We
are yes, we are all right. If you want to
know more about hand gladding, go take a lesson and
try it yourself. And in the meantime you can go
check out this ancient how stuff works article. It's hilarious. Um,
and just type in hand gliding and the search bar,
(38:23):
you know, bring this up and said say said that
it's time for listener mail. I'm gonna call this, uh,
just a really nice email from a nice, dude, o't nice. Hey, guys,
just recently finished my second run of every episode. How
about that. Hats off to you, dude, after hearing the
Simpsons podcasts and understanding how it shaped so many lives.
(38:46):
We'll let you know the stuff. You should know. It's
helped me just as much, if not more. Just as
you said, the Simpsons pointed me, you guys into the
direction of pop pop culture. I think you said that. Um,
your podcast shared of and shared knowledge have done the
same for me and many other people who listen. I've
been listening since two thousand nine, when I got my
first iPod at sixteen. Oh that's adorable, And at that
(39:09):
time it did not have many friends, suffered from depression,
and was dealing with a stressful life at home. When
I first found the podcast, I was immediately hooked because
it seemed like an audio version of Uncle John's Bathroom Reader,
which I was already an avid van of. Man, this
kid's got it nailed. Um, I know he mentioned Mad Magazine,
then I'll know it's you. He As I continue to listen,
(39:30):
I grew more and more attached to the comforting feeling
of two intelligent guys having a friendly talk about interesting information.
The show managed to give me a mental safe haven
during rough times at home, and your nuggets of wisdom
throughout the shows provide subtle life lessons that were crucial
to my formative years. The constant awareness of guiding listeners
to have an open mind and warm heart is a
(39:50):
needed reminder to be the best person I can be,
to be more like Josh and Chuck. After high school,
I joined the army and was isolated often in different
parts of the country. Knowing that I could hear the witty,
friendly banter of you two whenever I wanted always made
me feel right at home. Right now, I am finally
going back to college the Rifles, age twenty four and
(40:12):
is mostly thanks to you guys. You are my academic heroes.
Stuff you should know. May not have changed the world
as much as The Simpsons yet, but it has certainly
changed mind. Man. How about that That was a great email.
Thanks for picking that one, man, it was Thanks for
always being there. It means more than you can ever know.
Christian Stanley p s. If you read this for listener mail,
(40:34):
it would be one of the highlights of my life.
And will there you go, Christian Highlight achieved level up.
Thank you very much for that. That was a really
great email, and thanks for listening all these years. We
appreciate it. Yeah, Christian, we'd super duper appreciate it. And
if you want to tell us high and that, uh
you have been listening all these years, well we appreciate
(40:54):
you too. You can let us know via Twitter at
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dot com, slash stuff you Should Know or slash Charles W.
Chuck Bryant. You can send us an email to stuff
Podcasts at how stuff Works dot com and has always
joined us at our home on the web, Stuff you
Should Know dot com. For more on this and thousands
(41:19):
of other topics. Is it how stuff Works dot com
Welcome to Stuff you Should Know from how Stuff Works
dot Com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark,
and there's Charles W. Chuck Bryant, and there's Jerry Roland,
and as I said, there's me Josh Clark, which makes
(00:21):
this Stuff you Should Know a sore In addition, wow
soaring soaring Okay, the sore toe edition. I don't know
what that means either. It doesn't mean anything. It's just
kind of a sore toe is kind of the opposite
of soaring, you know, really drags you down to earth
(00:45):
because you think, like now I have to go to
like a urgent care center and get this toe checked
out and probably take some pills that make me throw up.
And it's just not like soaring high above the earth
on a hand glider, I imagine. And I've never hand glided,
of you, um no, but I've had a sword too,
so so you know, so do you have any desire
(01:10):
to hang glide after this? Because I gotta tell you, man,
I got kind of jazzed about the idea of trying
it from researching this article. Not really, no, so like
if you were somewhere on vacation and they had like
hand gliding lessons as part of the place you were staying.
Would you like go over and try it, you think,
(01:31):
or you just absolutely aren't enthused by it at all. Yeah,
it kind of depends, I guess on my mood and
what else is going on. I mean, I could see that.
I think that's fair. I wouldn't I wouldn't like seek
it out though. But if I was literally within fifty
ft of someone doing this right, and somebody picked you
up and put you into the hardest and I might
(01:52):
do it. But and I'm not afraid of it or anything.
It's just I don't know, I don't really care. Yeah, No,
I get that sense that you're not afraid of it.
I am terrified of heights, as you know. Um, but
this still sounds pretty appealing to me. Actually, I think
I might try it. I mean I used to do
repelling and stuff like that. So oh yeah, with your
dad right down Stone Mountain, they'll let you do that.
(02:18):
I thought they might. So hand gliding is what we're
talking about, Chuck. And it turns out this article, this
is an old school, old school how stuff works article,
which were really weird in a lot of different ways. Um,
But once we kind of dug in. We've we found that,
like the topic is actually a little more interesting than
(02:41):
the house Stuff Works article would lead someone to believe, Yeah,
it's a little dry, just his head bone dry, and
this is a Freud and Rich joint. He knows what
he's doing. He's got a PhD after his name. But
I think it was the culture of the age, you know, Like,
for example, in the article, he talks about a personal
(03:03):
experience hang gliding. You know exactly what I'm gonna say,
don't you. I don't know. I don't actually, so he
said that the place that he was taking this hand
gliding lesson is called Jockey's Ridge and it's a public park.
So he writes that, as you know, before they took
off the hand gliding instructor check to make sure that
(03:25):
our intended flight path was clear of obstacles and people
because it was a public park. That's like such a
two thousand one era how stuff works thing to mention
in an article. You know, yeah, I kind of found
myself skimming that part once I started reading it. There's
some good info in it, but yeah, the whole personal
experience thing, it just doesn't it doesn't click with me.
(03:45):
You know, so, um, hang gliding, should we should we
do a little history. I think we should do a
little bit of history because, like I said, it's kind
of interesting. Yeah, and this is one that you would
not Um. I was a little bit surprised to know
that NASA had anything to do with hang gliding, because
it seems like obviously those two things would be opposite
(04:06):
of one another, sort of like tow toe gliding sort
toe and storing. Yeah, it's like an s A T question,
it is. But there was an engineer for NASA named
Francis Rogelo, so you kind have had an idea in
the nineteen forties to use his Rogallo wing, uh, which
(04:30):
was I guess sort of a crude hang glider to
return space help return spacecraft to Earth. Yeah, instead of
a mere parachute, which is what I guess had been
used for a little while. Yeah. Like you know those
famous images of like the Gemini capsules coming back to
Earth and splashing down the ocean and they have like
a drag shoot you know that they're from Originally they're like,
(04:52):
what if we try this other thing? That's that will
be one day. The predecessor of the hang glider and
everyone said, what's the hang glider? And that person said,
just wait a little while. So Rigalo and his wife
actually were amateur aviation enthusiasts, and that's they were just
kind of doing this on the side. But when he
started working at NASA, they he said, hey, I've got
(05:14):
this idea. And it didn't pan out. But the the
the pictures of these tests that made it into magazines
captured the imagination of some people around the world all
at once. Different people who weren't in communication with one
another saw these pictures and thought, you know what, I
(05:35):
could do something with that. I could turn something like
that into like a personal, non motorized flight machine. And
they did. Yeah, But he was not the first person
to ever do stuff like this, because everyone, i think
has seen images of weirdos in the nineteenth century jumping
(05:56):
off of buildings with all manner of winged suits and
things like that, and one such guy, and that's just
the humans obsession with like literally flying themselves, like not
in a plane. There's also that it takes a certain
type though, if you think about it, like even today,
like somebody who says, wow, I'd really like to fly,
and someone who says wow, I'd really like to fly,
(06:17):
so I'm gonna spend ten years creating my own personal
flying machine. Those are two different people, yeah, for sure,
like the right brothers versus uh, this guy right exactly
that you've never heard of because he didn't do anything
otto lilienthal is that is that a good way to
pronounce that? Oh yeah, not this guy. This guy did
(06:38):
a lot. Yeah. Oh yeah, you're talking about the crackpots. Uh. Yeah.
He was a German engineer, obviously from that name, and
he was crazy about this stuff. And he literally did
over two thousand successful flights with these what they called
weight shift hand gliders, so hang gliders, where as you
(06:58):
will see, like the modern hang lider, you you shift
your weight to steer the thing, and he was he
was doing that in a kind of a crude way. Yeah,
he basically I mean like Leonardo da Vinci had like
some design for a hang glider. I don't know if
he's ever built, and the Chinese used to make criminals
hang glide for fun. But this is like the guy
(07:18):
who like actually went to the trouble of figuring out
how to make this right from his own designs, and
and like you said, two thousand successful flights. Is I mean,
that's that's proven technology, you know, so I say, and
I don't think it's just us, but Otto Lilienthal is
basically known as the father of hang gliding, the Opah. Yeah,
(07:43):
I guess OPA's grandfather. Yeah, but isn't that is that German? Yeah? Oh,
I thought that was Greek. Well I don't. It may
be Greek too, but I don't know. Opa is German
for uh. But you know, he did a good job.
Then the Rogue Rogallo machine or whatever they called it,
the Rogallo, the fantastic flying Rogallos came on the scene. Yeah,
(08:08):
but they apparently were not inspired by anything Lilienthal did.
His stuff really kind of fell to the wayside once
the Right Brothers started. You could see that a motorized flight, right,
Everybody's like, why would you want this thing when you
can just fly in a plane. And the Right Brothers
themselves experimented with hang gliders first and then um moved
on to two planes from their hang gliders. But by
(08:30):
this time, like the idea of hang gliding was was
dead and from what I understand, unknown to the Rigalos, Yeah,
we should totally do a right brothers show at some point.
I can't believe we haven't. I know there's a lot
out there. We will. Uh So flash forward some though
toe at the very hot party, the Auto Lilienthal anniversary
(08:54):
meet up in California. So he still had his people,
you know, I would guess the sort of early um
extreme stunt enthusiasts who held people like Otto Lilienthal Is
in high regard, and people came from all over the
place too to hang out and hang glide, I guess,
(09:16):
And that's where I think it was. Everyone sort of
points to that meet up that year is when the
reinvention of modern hang gliding came around, do you care
to say? I think so? And part of this that
So you've got alto Lilienthal, You've got the rigolos who
may or may not have been influenced by Lilienthal. And
then you've got a guy named Bruce Dickinson. No it's not,
(09:41):
he's the guy from John Dickinson and Australian Tom. No,
well this is Tom h Are there two of them?
Doug Dickinson? Was it Tom Dickinson? I mean that's what
this one article says. But okay, well I'm sure that
one's right. But so Tom Dickinson. I think he was
one of the ones who was inspired by those photos
(10:02):
of the Rigala wing from NASA and built his own
hand glider. And he created um like what you would
call um what's it called when you're like on a
your parasailing and you're being towed behind a boat parasailing. Okay,
So he invented basically that which later, to confuse things,
(10:23):
was reinvented in the eighties or rediscovered in the eighties
and became basically a separate but related sport to hang gliding.
But his designs for this paraglider early paraglider, was based
on the Rigala wing and basically improved it enough so
that other people said, hey, you know what, you could
turn this into what we call a foot launched hand glider.
(10:45):
And and by the early nineteen seventies it was under
it was it was the design had been improved enough that, yeah,
you could have like an invitational meetup of the crackpots
who are into this kind of thing back then, right,
And then a couple of years after that, a couple
of brothers named Bob and Chris wills Uh started Manufacturing
(11:05):
actually formed a company called Will's Wing, and by all accounts,
those dudes really really grew the sport in the early
to mid seventies because it's a very I mean, I know,
it's kind of been reborn now with these uh what
are they called, not solid wing or I guess you
could call him solid wing rigid Yeah, rigid wing. But
those early hand gliders, it's a very seventies sport, you know,
(11:30):
and they're so pretty in the seventies way to like
the colors they use. Yeah, for sure, love looking at
hand gliders looks like a catamaran sale up there, Yeah,
like a Hobie Cat or something. And you know, like
every I'm sure there was an episode of Chips where
one of them hand glided. They were it made its appearance,
It had its fingerprints all over seventies pop culture. Do
(11:51):
you remember, like back in the day on prices, right,
one of the standard um one of the standard prizes
was a Hobie Cat personal sailboat. Yeah, like anyone, You're like,
what am I going to do with that? In Texas? Right? Well,
I guess Texas has a shoreline though, look at me? Yeah,
there you go. How about Nebraska? Yeah, no shore line
(12:13):
of Nebraska. So by the seventies this thing had kind
of taken off, if you will forgive the unintended punt um,
and it's it's I don't have the impression that it's
like nearly as much of a craze today, even though
there have been major improvements like the rigid wing design.
(12:35):
It seems like it's the seventies and maybe the eighties
were the heyday, right. I get the feeling that today
it's sort of in that extreme sports category, especially with
these rigid wing But back in the seventies and eighties,
like dudes like my dad would probably go out and
give it a whirl right in his jeep. Yeah, absolutely,
(12:55):
Like my dad para glided or paras sailed on one
Florida trip one time, I remember, and in true like
my dad fashion was he was like, I'm the only
one doing this. It's like, I'm not gonna pay for
you guys to do it. The one but no way,
the one behind the boat. Mhmm. Yeah, Uman did that.
Once it got stuck up there for some reason, they
(13:16):
couldn't get her, like her and the friends she was
with down for a while, suck floating aloft. Yeah, well,
don't they just stop the boat and you come down.
I don't remember what the problem was, but there was
an issue that they couldn't like her her turn or
her ride or whatever, just kept going on and on
and on for some reason. I feel like the boat
didn't stop. They're like, I can't take my foot off
(13:37):
the gas. But by the way, and something you do
probably it's usually with the hand. I can't take my
hand off the gas. Yeah, exactly. There. So you want
to take a little break and then come back and
get into hang gliders themselves, Yeah, let's suit up. Okay, yeah, okay, man.
(14:15):
So hang gliders at its core an extremely simple machine, right,
and uh, it's actually a pretty clever one too, to
tell you the truth, I'm not quite sure. I can't
really put my finger on why I'm so jazzed about
the idea of trying it, but it's somewhere in here. Okay, Okay,
So you get the hang glider, which is basically an
(14:37):
air foil, right, yeah, and are we going to differentiate
a lot between the sort of the old school and
the and the new ones and the rigid wing. I
I looked up the difference and I didn't see a
terrible amount of difference. I saw that the rigid ones
have um they glide a lot longer, I think um
(15:00):
or they have like less of a sync rate. But
other than that, it's more of like a matter of
personal preference. And then you would train on the flexible
one for sure, So they still use flex wings. Okay,
I just wasn't. I had for some reason thought reddit
as sort of like the rigid wing took the place
of the flexible wing. No, I think it did not. Actually,
(15:20):
it's a different it's a modified design. And if you're
really really good at um at hand gliding, you you
may prefer the rigid, but you may also prefer the
flex you don't, you wouldn't necessarily graduate from one to
the other. And then the rigid didn't replace the flex wing,
all right, And just so people know for sure, we're
talking about the flexible wing. It's sort of that old
(15:43):
school hang glidder you think of that. Uh, it looks
like a modified parachute, and in fact it is like
a nylon parachute that you can hear kind of flapping
in the wind over some sort of aluminum frame. The
rigid wing is ordered the same but the fabric, it's
the wings themselves are it's just stiffer. It's not like
(16:09):
it's made out of wood or anything like that. It's
just like a stiffer um like the exoskeleton. I'm not
describing this very well. Once you bring the exo skeleton in,
it's all downhill from there. How would you describe the
rigid wing? So like it was, like you said, the
flex wing, it kind of flaps in the wind. It's
(16:30):
it's it covers a skeleton. But the rigid wing is
is virtually the same thing, but it has like struts, say,
woven into it that keeps it from flapping as much.
It makes it makes the fabric rigid. Yeah, and it's
like a pre fab wing you know that you would
load out of your car. Yeah. They're really tough to
(16:51):
travel with it from what I understand. As far as
like if you're flying somewhere on an airplane, you would
you would have to take your flexible wing pair and
glider like on an airplane. Yeah. Yeah, they disassemble really easily.
The like all of the joints are hinged, the tubes
pop out of one another. Um. The the actual um
(17:13):
fabric folds up and comes off and the wires, you know,
snap off. It's like whenever you're you're going to hang glide,
you want to put your thing, you want to assemble it,
and then you disassemble it when you're done. Yeah, And
they're like somewhere between forty seventy pounds, and from what
I can tell, the ones that way less are the
much more expensive ones because they might not even be
(17:36):
made out of aluminum. They may be made out of
something even light or like carbon fiber or something like that.
So the so, the whole, the whole point, whether you're
talking about and I don't really think we need to
get into two rigid wing just because it is just
a modified version of the flexible wing and the flexible
wings the one that everybody's familiar with. But with the
(17:56):
flexible wing, it's basically it's just a triangular skeleton made
of hollow aluminum aircraft grade aluminum tubes or carbon fiber tubes,
and you've basically got three um three tubes coming out
at one point. Did you ever take an art class
(18:18):
of drawing class? Nope, this can not make sense to you. Then,
well I've seen a hang glider though, Okay, well, so
if there's a point, if there's a the very front
tip of the triangle of that, that the that is
the hand glider. Then right the widow maker, the that's
(18:38):
the nose. Out of the nose, going directly back away
from you is a piece of metal, a tube called
the keel, yes, going at angles out of the nose
backward away from you as well. Those are the leading
edge tubes. And then about halfway back from the nose,
(19:03):
crossing the leading edge tubes and the keel connecting them all,
that's the crossbar. You have those four bars put together,
that's the basically the basic skeleton of the of the
hand glider. Okay, And if you haven't seen one of these,
just crawl out from under your rock, go to your laptop,
(19:25):
look at a picture of it. And you know, when
I was researching this, especially when Freud and Rich started
to get into the wires, the front wires and the
landing wires, and I was like, now I fully understand
what they mean when they say that a picture is
worth a thousand words. Like Freuden Rich could have spent
five thousand words explaining all this and he still wouldn't
(19:49):
have nailed it like a picture would it's just impossible
in a situation like this. Well, you've already explained more
than I would have. I would have just said, a
series of tubes and wires. Okay, So a series of
tubes connected, and then you've got the fabric covering that
you got wires having like holly, connecting everything um and
stabilizing it. And then the key to all of this,
(20:10):
there's a couple of keys. This is where it starts
to get fascinating. There's something called the control bar, right,
and the control bar is like a triangle that dangles
right in front of you when you're hanging from the
hand glider. And this is the thing that you you
have your hands on. It's it's how you control the
hand glidder, which is why it's called the control bar.
And then the next really essential piece, and I'll stop
(20:33):
after this, I promise, is the harness, which is suspended
from the keel above you, right behind where the control
bar hits the keel right, and so you are prone,
you're lying on your stomach when you're flying, and you're
hanging onto the control bar and you're dangling from the
hand glider above, which is why it's called hand gliding.
(20:55):
Because you're hanging from the hand glider. Fascinating it is,
and I imagine in the nineties seventies it seemed like
a fun idea when you're in Hawaii, we've had a
couple of rum drinks to uh to get in a suit,
throw on the helmet, strap into that harness and run
off the side of a cliff because that's how you used.
(21:18):
I mean, you can still launch like that, but it
looks like it's gotten a little more uh, like that's
fallen out of fashion a little bit, the run off
the cliff version. I don't know if that's true. Man,
I think that that's like, um, that you're an advanced
hand glider, that's probably how you're going to try it,
although you yeah, although you can't, I mean, you can't
do um, you know, like a dune or something like that.
(21:40):
It's really good for training or whatever. But they have
like I don't know if you call it, like a
launch ramp or something like that, but like some sort
of launch that they build onto the edges of cliffs
to run off of for hand gliding, and they're just
terrifying to even look at pictures of. Yeah, I mean,
i'd say I'm not scared to do it, but I'm
(22:01):
I imagine I would have some butterflies when you go
and run and jump off that thing, Right, I would too, man,
So don't feel bad. But you see people do it.
And my immediate thought is I'm gonna nose dive, But
you don't knows dive thanks to physics. Right, And do
you want to take a break and then get into
the physics. Yeah, we might as well hang gliding shock
(22:41):
all right, physics. So the reason a hang glider works
is because of its elegant lightweight design and the way
the air moves over these wings, and then all of
these other forces acting in concert with one another to
make sure you stay up there for as long as possible. Yeah.
So the first one we're talking about is lift. The
(23:04):
air goes over the surface of that wing, and that's
going to generate that lift when you run and you
jump off of that platform, and it's going to counter
the gravity. But gravity in this case is not bad
like gravity is actually going to be. While it does
want to pull you to Earth, it's what's making you
go forward continuing that airflow. Gravity is is your friend
(23:26):
in this case. Yeah, and then you've got drag, which
is really the the other one. Um, those three factors
together are what really applied to hang gliding, and drag
is what ultimately slows you down. It's you're running into
air molecules, and the faster you go, the more drag
you have, the more the faster you get slowed down,
which then brings in the syncrate, which is the speed
(23:51):
at which a hang glider starts to descend towards Earth.
It's measured in like feet per second in still air, okay, right,
and the distance it can travel is determined by something
called the glide ratio, which is the ratio of the
forward distance through the vertical distance dropped for forward distance
(24:12):
you've traveled to your to that drop rate. Yeah, so
like say every twenty four ft you move forward, you
drop like one ft downward. Right, So that's I mean,
that's really basically it for physics. But the hand gliding
would be like an entirely different sport if it weren't
(24:34):
for um, the ability to catch air currents. Yeah, it's
kind of all about that. Otherwise they would just be
pretty quick rides. They would be I mean, like it'd
be pretty awesome still, especially if you like you launched
off a cliff and then just kind of glided slowly
downward toward the toward the Earth. It's still be pretty cool,
but you can you can catch air currents if you
(24:55):
know what you're doing and stay aloft for hours and
go across parts entire parts of the country. As a
matter of fact, the um the record for the longest
distance traveled is like four hundred and seventy two miles,
so I think it's like seven kilometers. They basically what
(25:16):
these two dudes went from Lubbock, Texas to Nuevo Laredo
over the course of I think like eleven hours maybe
something like that. And the way that you do this
is that you go find these air currents, and there's
a couple of places you can reasonably expect you're going
to find upward lift from air, right, Yeah, hot air
(25:36):
is one way thermal lift. And that's like over a desert,
like hot sand or pavement prefer the hot sand over pavement,
or if it's super sunny. And and I get the
feeling that when the more experience you have, the more
you know how to how to look around your environment
to feel and see where this might be happening. Yeah,
(26:00):
Supposedly one way that they do it is to look
for birds that are just sitting there kind of soaring. Uh,
and you can just go catch that air column whatever
it is that they're soaring on. Right. That's one of
the most like relaxing things for me to see. Yeah,
there's a hawk, almost emotionless, just sort of floating. Now
imagine doing it yourself. Yeah, didn't that seem relaxing? I
(26:24):
think it sounds great. Yeah, No, I would. I would
enjoy it. I'm sure it's not gonna get through a
lot of effort to make it happen. Yeah, apparently I've
made it my mission to get you hang gliding for
some reason. And what it's a in the Chips episode,
you will have rigged my hang glider to cratch right,
poor Robert Pine. Uh. And then he's Robert Pine. He
(26:47):
was there like captain or sergeant. Yeah, great, great actor.
I can picture him immediately in my brain. Uh. And
then you've got something called ridge lift, and that's air
that's that's deflected up by um like a mountain or
a ridge, and the basically the topography of the ground
beneath you and around you. You can learn to read
(27:08):
that stuff and you know where these swells and columns
of air gonna be right. And when you when you
find these columns of air, these lifts, like, you don't
just fly into them and all of a sudden you're
up because they're actually usually fairly small. Um, so you
would basically fly right through them, maybe get a little
bit of lift, but then you just keep going and
start descending again. If you're going to catch an air
(27:30):
current and upward air current, you um basically want to
enter into a tight spiral, basically an upward corkscrew spiral.
You're you're following the air current upward. And to do this,
it's all just basically based on simple movements of your body.
That's the whole thing with steering and controlling a hand glider.
(27:53):
It all has to do with the different um adjustments
to the weight you're putting on the control bar at
triangle that's in front of you that you're hanging onto.
Yeah exactly. So um, you know you go left and right,
but I think literally shifting your body as it's hanging
and you go up and down by tipping and it's
(28:14):
you know, it may see encounterintuitive or who knows. Once
you're up there. It may seem like the right way
to do it, but in order to go up, you
tip the nose down, and then vice versa. Yeah, And
to tip the nose down, you pull the control bar
towards you, so you're shifting your weight forward, and when
you push put that that nose down, your trade again
(28:35):
some of your altitude. You know, you're you're basically creating
a nose dive, but just for just enough to to
speed up and then to slow down. You push the
control bar away from you, which tips the nose up,
which basically stops the um the glide of the glider.
It turns it. Yeah, it turns it into like a
(28:58):
piece of fabric trying to go forward through space rather
than something just cutting smoothly horizontally. It's it's starting, it's
now vertical in some way, and it slows it down.
And that's actually the way you land too. Apparently you
can land on your feet very gently. Once you're close
to the ground, you start to stall by pushing the
(29:19):
control bar away from you, That lifts the nose up,
cut your speed off, and then you just kind of
in a nice gentle trot, hit the ground and and
you say, I just hang glided. Yes, I think what
I would worry about for myself is that, um, some
of this stuff may not be intuitive or instinctive, and
I would do the wrong thing and then panic. So, uh,
(29:42):
that's actually a really good point. Um. This group called
Kitty Hawk Kites from North Carolina, which are actually sited
in the House to Works article, they had like a
really good tips for beginner's article as well, and they
say one of the things that you have to learn
is to remain calm, because it takes a bit of finesse.
(30:04):
From what I understand it takes. Um. You have to
you have to be able to very smoothly move your
weight around and if you're anxious and you're hanging onto
the control bar too too tight, your movements are going
to be kind of herky jerky, and it's it's not
a good way to hang glide. So you want to
be you want to be relaxed and controlled. And they
(30:26):
say that the best way to do this is to
have a few tandem lessons. First, I have a few drinks.
I would guess that. I don't know if they would
recommend that or not. Maybe yeah, and maybe one for
when you're up there too. But yeah, yeah, they're like
where'd you get that? But they offer like tandem lessons, right,
(30:49):
so you're you're on there next to somebody who is
an experienced hang glider and they're controlling and then they
can hand over the control the control bar to you,
but say, okay, now let's go left or let's go right,
And all that is is just shifting your weight left,
shifting your weight right, shifting your weight forward or backward
for up or down. It's as simple as that. But
(31:10):
I think remaining calm is a huge part of the
whole thing. That's a good point, yeah, for sure. Um
So if you're an experienced pilot, you might also have
some other gear up there with you, um, like in
a variometer, and this is what in a lot of
these you can hear, so you don't have to look
at it. It'll like, I guess it barks out. You know,
(31:33):
you're climbing in descent rate, which is pretty handy. Uh.
And then what's the other one the altimeter? Uh altimeter. Yeah,
that's the one that just tells you what your altitude
is called the altimeter altimet tear and you're gonna want
goggles and obviously the helmet. And I think if you
do these more, the higher up extreme things, you're gonna
(31:56):
also have a parachute. Yeah, when you're hitting thousands of feet. Yeah.
They say that most of the accidents that happened happened
on takeoff or landing, that it's rarely. Um, does somebody
just fall out of the sky even when they hit turbulence.
You're not gonna like just drop out of the sky
like a stone. Um, that's just not how aerodynamics works.
(32:17):
But you'll have a bumpy ride. It's more like you, um,
you hit a tree or you um like you feel
like you fall off the cliff, like you're your your
hand glider doesn't catch air right or something like that.
That that's usually on takeoff or landing when you when
you have a crash. Although I did see, um I
(32:39):
think it was might have and because that is of course,
looked up hand gliding deaths and um, this one guy
like fell out of his hand glider entirely, oh man
and went to the ground. Yeah, that would be That'd
be one way that it could happen too. And I
don't know if we said or not. Otto Lilienthal died
in a hand gliding crash. That's how he went, Oh,
(33:00):
I don't think I need that very appropriately, you know,
so um in reading Kittie hawk Kites description of you
know what what it feels like when you're learning how
to hang glide? So they hang glide on sand dunes,
which is virtually the same area that the Wright brothers
tried their stuff out on. And the reason why they
(33:21):
use sand dunes because there's a gentle slope for one,
but number two, if you fall, you fall into sand,
which is much more forgiving than, like you said, pavement. Right,
But when you're when you're hang gliding, when you're learning
how to do this, the whole point is, man, they
did such a good job describing me. And basically they said,
(33:41):
imagine you're running down a hill, right, and you don't
have a hang glider. You're just running downhill. Eventually you're
gonna pick up enough speed that your legs can't keep
up with it. Gravity is pulling you downward, and you're
gonna start tumbling downhill. So it's you you just crashed
running downhill, right, they said. With a hang glider, what
you're doing is you're running downhill and you're picking up
(34:03):
that same speed. But you're using the hang glider to
stabilize yourself so that your legs don't get ahead of yourself.
And if you can find that balance, and it just
takes a few times to practice this, well, probably several times,
but if you can find that balance to where you
can trust and stabilize yourself with the hang glider as
you're running down the slope, eventually the weight of your
(34:24):
body and the hand glider that you're holding, because remember
it ways up to about seventy pounds, the weight of
the two things starts to be transferred as the there
as lift is produced under the hand glider from the
bottoms of your feet to the straps of your harness,
and little by little that that weight is transferred and
eventually your feet are no longer making contact with the ground.
(34:47):
And I'll bet there's a cute few seconds where your
feet are just going through the area, you know, and
the it's now the straps holding you up and through
so it's the hang glider through the straps holding you up,
and you've just taken off and now you're so ring
but I would be like, I'm not ready yet, and
then then you just pull the pull back on the
control bar or push No, I'm sorry, you push forward
(35:07):
on the control bar, the nose would go up and
you'd you'd land after just you know, being a couple
of feet off the ground if you had your head
about you. But what they're saying is is like, even
if you never do catch air, as long as you
don't hesitate and you just keep you know, using the
hand glider to stabilize yourself, at the worst, you're gonna
just end up at the bottom of the hill having
(35:30):
run down there and never caught air. At best you
will have caught air right and you'll just taken off.
But the whole point with them is is that you're
training on sand, so even if you bite it, you're
still just in sand, so it's fine. All this explains though,
why they don't just say, okay, here's a cliff with
a lawn tramp run off. You have to know what
(35:50):
you're doing and it eventually you wanted to be You
wanted to go from a gradual transfer to a very
sudden transfer of weight from your feet to the strap
to the harness. Correct. Yeah, And then there's one other
way that you can do this too, and it's being
towed by a machine. Like Paris sailing right, you're being
(36:10):
towed by a boat. Well, I was reading this article
from I think, and people in Kansas they have nothing
to launch off of. But they were still in hang gliding,
so they were using tow trucks or not toe trucks,
pickup trucks. They just sit in the back of pickup
trucks with like a little cable attached to them, and
as the pickup chuck gain speed, there glider would start
(36:33):
to be picked up and they eventually disconnect themselves and
hang glide around. Kansas launched me a pickup of course,
it's Kansas awesome. It does not surprise me. No, that
makes sense. I think I might even feel a little
better about automobile doing the work for me. Oh really,
a pickup chuck? Well maybe, I mean, do they do
(36:56):
they just tell you around? Literally parasl styled. Do they
tell you to ord a Well, they don't have any
cliffs in Kansas. No, they don't. They don't have anything.
You're your your golden in that respect. The only cliffs
in Kansas are delivering your mail. Nice one, Um, I
have one more thing, You got anything else? I got
(37:16):
one more thing. So the earliest earliest hand gliding designs
didn't use a harness. It was like a hang glider
like you have, right, but you would run and then eventually,
like the hang glider would would just lift off and
you'd be dangling like a rock from the control bar,
hanging on for dear life. Rather than being connected by
(37:39):
a harness in a prone position. You would just be
hanging from like downward from the control bard. Yeah. I
mean it was nothing like the hang glider like experience
that we have now. They didn't last very long and
they didn't go very far and get very high. But
I think it's kind of like a zip line. Wow. Yeah,
(38:03):
so that's it. That's hang glider man. There you have it.
We're gonna go do it this uh this spring. We
are yes, we are all right. If you want to
know more about hand gladding, go take a lesson and
try it yourself. And in the meantime you can go
check out this ancient how stuff works article. It's hilarious. Um,
and just type in hand gliding and the search bar,
(38:23):
you know, bring this up and said say said that
it's time for listener mail. I'm gonna call this, uh,
just a really nice email from a nice, dude, o't nice. Hey, guys,
just recently finished my second run of every episode. How
about that. Hats off to you, dude, after hearing the
Simpsons podcasts and understanding how it shaped so many lives.
(38:46):
We'll let you know the stuff. You should know. It's
helped me just as much, if not more. Just as
you said, the Simpsons pointed me, you guys into the
direction of pop pop culture. I think you said that. Um,
your podcast shared of and shared knowledge have done the
same for me and many other people who listen. I've
been listening since two thousand nine, when I got my
first iPod at sixteen. Oh that's adorable, And at that
(39:09):
time it did not have many friends, suffered from depression,
and was dealing with a stressful life at home. When
I first found the podcast, I was immediately hooked because
it seemed like an audio version of Uncle John's Bathroom Reader,
which I was already an avid van of. Man, this
kid's got it nailed. Um, I know he mentioned Mad Magazine,
then I'll know it's you. He As I continue to listen,
(39:30):
I grew more and more attached to the comforting feeling
of two intelligent guys having a friendly talk about interesting information.
The show managed to give me a mental safe haven
during rough times at home, and your nuggets of wisdom
throughout the shows provide subtle life lessons that were crucial
to my formative years. The constant awareness of guiding listeners
to have an open mind and warm heart is a
(39:50):
needed reminder to be the best person I can be,
to be more like Josh and Chuck. After high school,
I joined the army and was isolated often in different
parts of the country. Knowing that I could hear the witty,
friendly banter of you two whenever I wanted always made
me feel right at home. Right now, I am finally
going back to college the Rifles, age twenty four and
(40:12):
is mostly thanks to you guys. You are my academic heroes.
Stuff you should know. May not have changed the world
as much as The Simpsons yet, but it has certainly
changed mind. Man. How about that That was a great email.
Thanks for picking that one, man, it was Thanks for
always being there. It means more than you can ever know.
Christian Stanley p s. If you read this for listener mail,
(40:34):
it would be one of the highlights of my life.
And will there you go, Christian Highlight achieved level up.
Thank you very much for that. That was a really
great email, and thanks for listening all these years. We
appreciate it. Yeah, Christian, we'd super duper appreciate it. And
if you want to tell us high and that, uh
you have been listening all these years, well we appreciate
(40:54):
you too. You can let us know via Twitter at
Josh M Clark or s y SK Podcasts on Facebook
dot com, slash stuff you Should Know or slash Charles W.
Chuck Bryant. You can send us an email to stuff
Podcasts at how stuff Works dot com and has always
joined us at our home on the web, Stuff you
Should Know dot com. For more on this and thousands
(41:19):
of other topics. Is it how stuff Works dot com
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