by Mike Chevalier
Dreams never make any sense even when they're about hang gliding.
I'm flying somewhere in the desert, in the Owens, conditions are strong, the sky is getting dark and I'm fighting the cloudsuck. I can see the ground, it's rocky and rough, large raindrops are starting to pelt the sand. My friends in a truck are following me, I can see them on the road nearby. I'm diving right at a rocky mound, downwind, not slowing down, not pulling out. The airspeed inicator on my Ball vario pegged at 85mph and then the whole vario blows off of the right downtube. Under a hundred feet and still not pulling out. I never felt the impact, just saw a blinding flash of white light and the glider disintegrating and the flight's over.
I'm in a room without walls with a hardwood floor with mist all around. "Fields of Gold" by Sting is playing in the background. Bill Bennett sits in a wooden chair across from me telling me how bad I screwed up, Just me and Bill and 2 chairs. Chris Bladen* appears, carrying a green lantern and a stack of comics under his arm. He starts showing them to me, I appear in some of them in a hang gliding adventure. His short sleeves reveal bulging veins , he boasts that no needle marks are visible.
I like to dive my glider and feel the bottom drop out but I wouldn't do it close to the ground. I got a couple flights in the Owens back in '91. One uneventful extended sled and a glass off in the evening. I don't have a Ball vario anymore, I've got a Flytech. I always put my vario on the left downtube and I don't think it would blow off.
Bill never told me how bad I screwed up but did offer constructive criticism if I needed improvement at something. I doubt if Bill listened to Sting, I found an Oak Ridge Boys tape in his truck. Bill and Chris didn't know each other, they had never met. They were on the opposite ends of the spectrum. Chris never got to see hang gliding but I did show him pictures and videos, a needle full of heroin took his life 3 years ago. He collected comics but I never recall seeing hang gliding in any of them.
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I'm flying in front of a tall cliff face watching people spray paint colorful graffitti
on the face. I see myself on a ledge, chiseling my name into the sandstone in large block letters along with a picture of a glider. A guy on a motorcycle sits there on the ledge watching me.
I wouldn't condone plastering such a beautiful scene with grafitti, nor could I be in two places at once. I did carve my name into the sandstone slope at the Parc Saint Michel, Menton, France long ago. That rock face would have made the perfect glider launch, guys would ride trials motorcycles on it.
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I'm setting up on a rock at the top a cliff. Rock climbers are all around, the instructor complains to me that I'm stepping on her ropes.
I couldn't possibly fly here, the trees are growing right up to the cliff. I haven't seen the rock climbing instructor in over 20 years.
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I'm flying at High Rock, swooping and diving. I dive towards launch and land in the setup area amidst other gliders. I pack up and ride on the back of a motorcycle to the LZ with the glider under my arm.
I couldn't possibly land in the High Rock set up area, no way. I have seen a couple gliders blow a launch and crash there. Even the lightest glider would be too big and heavy to carry under an arm while riding shotgun on a bike. And why would I take the glider to the LZ?
*A friend of mine who died of a heroin overdose a few years ago.