There is no fear among us.
Then Brad Kushner launches into Part 3 of his hang-gliding lecture: How to Avoid Crashes and What to Do if You Do Crash.
The 34-year-old entrepreneur, who has parlayed his love of flying into the Midwest`s largest instructional hang-gliding school, explains there`s little to fear.
Of the 6,000 beginners he has taught to fly, there have been only 14 crashes, resulting in a few broken ankles, arms, that sort of thing.
”If it happens, let the glider absorb the impact,” he repeats. Nobody`s responsible for breaking the hang glider for the first three lessons.
Of course, if the glider should break-a piece of sharp metal somehow colliding with the body-Kushner allows that`s extremely remote, but unspoken thoughts are swirling through our heads. At least one person considers dropping out. But, hey, who wants to be a quitter?
There is little fear among us as we approach the grassy flat field where Kushner will lead us through test runs.
”Everybody rested?” Kushner asks the four-member class on this 90-degree sun-beating day.
We overhear Brian Hathcoat, 29, of Berwyn, say something about sleeping 12 hours.
”Really?” Brad said. ”Last night?”
”The last four nights (combined),” Hathcoat says.
Hathcoat`s the first to strap on Kushner`s 42-pound Dove hang glider, a colorful bird he calls the most forgiving of hang gliders. Sort of like an old wooden tennis racket, one gathers-not a finely tuned instrument, but anyone can hit it and you don`t much mind if it gets beaten up.
The test runs put everyone`s mind at ease. We have helmets and sturdy harnesses, and Kushner has run us through the drill we`ll follow when we go off the hill: Pull in, run fast, let the bars out halfway, then all the way when you`re ready to land.
With minimum fear among us, we ascend the hill.
Kushner assembles many of his beginner classes at this 45-foot bunny hill located in Wilson Park in South Milwaukee.
The Waukegan-based owner of Raven Sky Sports teaches year-round, usually beckoning beginners to the Milwaukee hill or one near Whitewater for the one- day, six-hour first-time lessons.
For $75, Kushner and his staff can teach anyone to fly in one day, provided they`re just normally fit. The most strenuous aspect of the experience is hauling the glider back up the hill after the flights.
The day begins like this. Class members (size is restricted to six) phone Kushner at 7 a.m. the day of their lesson to make sure the weather is okay. Wind conditions, not just rain in the forecast, are a big determinant. About 15 percent of all classes are canceled and rescheduled.
Kushner has already checked wind directions to decide which hill is best for the day and tells students when they call to meet him at the preferred site at 9:30.
After hearing him talk about the Whitewater site, which is in a state park and evokes the image of wild terrain, Wilson Park comes as a surprise.
”Turn at the senior center and park by the tennis courts,” he says at promptly 7:03 that morning.
But the site of the bunny hill just beyond the rec center and parking lot is comforting. Piece of cake.
I am joined by Hathcoat and his friends Larry Svestka, 24, of Berwyn and Joe Placek, 39, of North Riverside.
Placek had once gone skydiving. ”I`ll try anything once,” he says.
”It didn`t seem as crazy as bungee jumping,” Svestka says.
Having a second lesson are Merryrose Wurtz, 56, and her son Brian, 30, of Park Ridge.
Wurtz had always wanted to hang glide and decided she wasn`t getting any younger. ”My friends were getting arthritis, and I thought I better do it now.”
Besides, she says, ”I have dreams of flying. I`m flapping my wings, and this is as close as you can get.”
Before we get to the bird stage, Kushner conducts the classroom phase of the lesson (held under a shady tree)-about 2 1/2 hours of instruction on the hang glider`s structure and how it flies, what makes it stay in the air and what makes it fall.
We learn that the energies of gravity and wind propel the engineless craft and that we`ll be able to glide as far as 100 feet if we do things right.
He mixes a little Newtonian theory in, but mostly what sticks in the mind is this statement: ”Think of it as a giant paper airplane, and you`re the paper clip.”
We watch Merryrose and Brian work with another instructor, taking off and landing smoothly-sometimes. (We discovered rocky landings are not the same as crashes. You get up and walk away and try again, thankful Kushner told you to wear sturdy long pants.)
The safety portion of the lecture comes at the end. The last thing Kushner tells you is that the hill may seem small, but it looks a lot bigger when you get to the top.
Hathcoat scoffs. At the summit, however, the task of sprinting off the side of the hill with a 42-pound airplane strapped to your back suddenly seems a little less glamorous.
But Kushner will be running with us on our descent and reminding us what to do.
Hathcoat will go first. ”Chickens,” he mutters when Kushner has asked who`ll go first.
Our spirits are buoyed when he makes a clean takeoff, soaring smoothly and landing, balanced, on both feet. Svestka and I take our turns with success.
During the brief seconds of actual flight, I am reminded of what another friend who took Kushner`s course said: ”You`re only off the ground 10 feet, but believe me, it feels like 40.”
Each of us experiences a knee landing, and Placek, too, finally gets up.
Kushner has had to wait until the wind strengthened because he hasn`t brought an appropriate-sized glider for the large-framed Placek. (Memo to interested hang gliders: Be sure to tell the instructor your height and weight. Placek was invited back free of charge for another lesson with the proper size glider.)
Six runs and we`d all graduated. A passerby took a group photo. Placek and the others promised to come back.
According to Kushner, 5 percent of the 600 who took a lesson in the last year continued on to become certified gliders. Those people will probably accompany Kushner on one of the periodic trips he leads to a popular hang-gliding spot in Tennessee`s Smoky Mountains, where dedicated pilots can glide for hours.
You must be certified at the advanced level by the U.S. Hang Gliding Association for that.
Ellen Marcus, 16, a Chicagoan, would like to reach that level. She had wanted to go flying as long as she could remember. But 100 pounds is the minimum one can weigh for one of Raven Sky`s classes.
Marcus` parents finally granted her wish as a 16th birthday present in June. The 5-foot 1-inch, 115-pound novice was elated. ”It just lifts you up!” she said. ”It`s much like driving. You have to know your positions.”
Now she`s saving to buy her own glider. That costs $2,000 and up for a good piece of equipment. Doves are in the $1,200 range but not suitable for serious gliding. Always buy Hang Gliding Manufacturing Association-certified gliders, Kushner said. It`s part of the master pilot`s emphasis on safety.
Hang gliding gets a rap as an extremely dangerous sport, and it is a high-risk activity, but it acquired its daredevil reputation during its early days, in the 1970s. Equipment then was vastly inferior to that available today, and pilots were much more inexperienced.
According to Hang Gliding magazine, one in 1,000 pilots suffers a fatality. Nine people died hang gliding in 1991.
On the other hand, thousands more reached heights of 2,500 feet or more and took in some spectacular scenery. The men`s world record for distance covered is 302 miles, set in New Mexico in 1990 (the pilot got all the way to Kansas); the women`s record, set in the same place, is 210 miles.
Kushner has flown to an altitude of 5,000 feet in New Mexico and stepped off a 1,500-foot mountain to go up 2,500 feet. ”Hang gliding is riding an updraft, not just gliding down,” he explained.
Greg Fischer, president of the Chicago Hang Gliding Organization, said of Kushner: ”Brad trains the most people in the area and is probably one of the most experienced instructors anywhere. He`s been doing it since the early days. He gives a good ground school and doesn`t usually let anyone go beyond his capabilities.”
One of the most memorable rides for Kushner, who grew up on Long Island and learned the sport there, came in Upstate New York when the autumn colors were in peak and he skimmed the trees 100 feet above.
He can give less-experienced pilots that feeling by taking them up in a two-person glider (to fly this solo, one must be USHGA certified). They`ll fly a half-hour or so off Mt. Baldy at the Indiana Dunes State Park.
Kushner utilizes a total of 12 spots for flights, one in Indiana, 10 in Wisconsin and one near McHenry.
Raven Sky is now offering for first-time flyers dual instruction aero towing. A small tow plane carries a dual glider 2,500 feet up, then releases it. Aero towing allows a greater variety of hang gliding for Midwesterners bound by flat plains and few mountains or hills.
Kushner`s aero towing facility is at the Whitewater site and costs $80 per lesson.
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For more information, call Raven Sky Sports at 708-360-0700. Also, the Chicago Hang Gliding Organization meets once a month at the Field Museum in Chicago, and meetings are open to the public. Call 312-281-3338. Other hang gliding operations in the Chicago area are High Expectations, based in Des Plaines, 708-699-8545, and J.J. Mitchell Hang Gliding, based in Indiana, 219-845-2856.
