Beautiful Flights

Although it is part of the extreme sports category, there is no need for special training to fly a hang glider. You only need to be able to run a little bit upon taking off and landing.

Ana-Maria Cononovici, 29.03.2015, 17:31

Although it is part of the extreme sports category, there is no need for special training to fly a hang glider. You only need to be able to run a little bit upon taking off and landing. If there is no age limit to practice hang gliding, there is, however a weight limit, ranging from 40 to 100 kilograms. Stefan Adam will tell us how his passion for this sport started, which he first discovered by reading an article about it. Stefan was a student at the Faculty of Automatic Control and Computer Engineering when he first learned about hang gliding.

Stefan Adam.: ”During my last year as university student, I came across a newspaper article on hang gliding, entitled ‘Hang Gliding, an Extreme Sport’, and I found it interesting. Thinking about it, I realized that could be the way for me to fulfill my dream of flying. First I contacted several flight instructors whose names were mentioned in that article, and later I got to in touch with another flight instructor from the town of Piatra Neamt. We had a tandem flight together and some low-altitude flights (the control of the wing on the ground). And then I started training under the guidance of a student from Iasi. We exercised flights on some hills near the city, some low-altitude flights at first.”

We found out that hang gliding does not involve jumping or throwing ourselves forward. The takeoff from a grass-covered decline only involves a few running steps and then…gliding begins. The hang gliding experience took Stefan Adam to places he had only dreamed of.

Stefan Adam: ” I’ve been to exotic places such as Nepal, India, Kenya and Brazil. In Romania, I’ve been to lots of places where hang gliding is practiced. I’ve also been to Italy, Slovenia and Austria. I tried to cover as many areas as possible, an extremely varied relief and also to practice different types of flight, in both upland and flatland environments. Nepal was very special to me: apart from the fact that it is a very interesting country, with special people, the relief enables you to take some very beautiful flights, which are relatively easy to do, as a local microclimate is created and flight conditions are about the same every day, the wind blows from the same direction, with the same velocity, with slight variations. And you can practice long distance flights. A threshold nearly everybody dreams of is the 100-km threshold, which means a four or five-hour flight. If you fly in the plain, the wind from the back might help you, since as a rule, you take off, lift yourself up at the cloud base and then keep on flying, helped by the wind from the back. “

We asked Stefan Adam how Brazil looks like, when you fly over it:”Brazil is a very beautiful country, due to its landscape and vegetation, which is a lush vegetation. I flew in Rio de Janeiro and Govarnador Valadares. Hang gliding in Rio has been spectacular, as the city itself is very interesting. It lies on the ocean shore, also stretching between the rocks, which are about 800-1,000 meters high, with tropical forest, a mix of city, forest, sea and mountain – something really special. And in Governador Valadares there is a hilly area, with hills 200-300 meters high one next to the other which creates a spectacular landscape.”

Wherever you may go and fly, it is the sheer pleasure of the flight that matters most, and the joy of what you get to see from above, as the perspective changes and the landscape is not accessible to everybody.

Stefan Adam: ”Romania seen from above is very beautiful, we have lots of breathtaking areas, such as the Fagaras mountains. I flew above the entire area, from Fagaras to Brasov. I flew over the Bucegi Mountains but also over Ceahlău, Vatra Dornei and Rarău, in the Parâng Mountains, Miercurea Ciuc, and around Sfânta Ana ( Saint Ann) lake. Romania has its charm as well. You can also fly during winter, it’s just that you cannot do distance flights in our country, as temperature differences are not that big so as to build us thermals. We fly using some hot air streams which go up, and which are called thermals. And during winter you can’t feel these thermals, or they are very weak, which means that you can take off from a mountain or a hill only for low-altitude flights. For me it’s not that interesting, although the landscape is different, with everything being covered in snow, something beautiful and spectacular.”

In the near future, Stefan Adam plans to fly in the Alps, for their beautiful landscape, the high mountain tops, always covered in snow, and the deep valleys. And then he plans to go to Columbia and Australia.

Furthermore, Stefan Adam has encouraged us all to fly a hang glider, provided we are properly equipped, that is wearing mountain boots or shoes with a good grip, and long-sleeved blouses: ”What can I tell the listeners? First they should try hang gliding, they should try a tandem flight, as it is something special, they should try it at least once in a lifetime. Maybe they get a taste of flying all by themselves. “

I am not so sure if we dare to fly, but we join Stefan Adam in wishing you, just like a hang glider pilot would, ”Beautiful flights” or “Front wind!”