Glider Glasnost : 8 Pilots Break New Ground in Summit With the Soviets

The Sylmar Hang Gliding Assn. has in its possession a banner that proudly proclaims that city “the hang gliding capital of the world.” Last month, during a five-day competition in the Soviet Union billed as the International Peace Cup, several club members were rather rudely brought back to earth.

In a U.S.-Soviet hang gliding summit in Alma-Ata, the Kazakh republic capital that lies about 100 miles from the Chinese border, Soviet pilots took the top nine places. The event is the first of its kind in the Soviet Union to involve U.S. competitors.

“We thought we would go there and show them a thing or two,” said Rome Dodson, 61, of Sepulveda, one of eight self-proclaimed ambassadors of hang gliding who made the trip.

Granted, Soviet fliers outnumbered their U.S. counterparts better than 12 to 1, but they capitalized on their home-air advantage.

Each day, competitors were required to negotiate a triangular 50-mile course, with reference points established at 15- to 20-mile intervals. The The winner was determined on the basis of total distance traveled for the five days.

Joe Greblo, 38, of Tujunga, led the Sylmar contingent with a 10th-place finish.

“Nobody from the U. S. was a real serious competition pilot,” Greblo said. “I was probably the most serious about trying to do well among the group.”

Greblo, who operates Windsports hang gliding shop in Van Nuys, organized the trip after meeting Soviet hang glider pilots in the 1989 U.S. national championships in Dunlap, Calif.

“The Soviet pilots flew in the contest, and then they visited the L.A. area,” Greblo said. “They were promoting a hang-gliding competition in the Soviet Union, and they wanted to encourage a couple of Americans to come over there. And they asked me to organize a trip.”

Each Sylmar pilot put up $2,000 for travel expenses. Greblo said the trip had more of a vacation feel to it than a competitive one.

“We didn’t know what to expect, so we were fully prepared for an adventure,” Greblo said. “As it turned out, it was a lot of fun, and everything was reasonably well prepared for us. Communications and accommodations were good, and the food was delicious.

“But more importantly, we were made to feel right at home, with an atmosphere of hospitality and friendship.”

Each morning during the competition, after the Sylmar contingent had finished an enormous Soviet-style breakfast buffet, they were piled into six-wheel-drive Red Army multipurpose vehicles and taken on a 45-minute drive about 6,000 feet high up the foothills of the Tyan’ Shan’ Mountains. The pilots were dropped off on a grassy knoll where multitudes of wings were being assembled, overlooking the fertile southeastern Soviet region.

Alma-Ata is renowned for its tree-lined streets and heavy agricultural areas.

“Alma-Ata was beautifully green, (it) being springtime,” Dodson said.

Dodson, who has flown hang gliders for 15 years, was one of six men and two women on the U.S. squad. Also making the trip were Jim Ketchum of Marina del Rey; Ken Manatt of Los Angeles; Jim Junio of Anaheim; Bob Lafay of Tujunga; Greblo’s wife, Kris; and the women’s world record-holder in open-distance flying, Katherine Yardley of Sunland, who set the mark by flying 168 miles in just under 10 hours over the Owens Valley last summer.

Yardley was unable to take advantage of her long-distance skills in the International Peace Cup.

“I regret that most of the flying conditions were mild, and nobody went high or far,” Yardley said. “The triangular tasks of the event were more suited for the locale.”

Yardley explained that the U.S. pilots were used to “deserty” conditions such as those she encountered on her record flight from Lone Pine, on the eastern flank of the High Sierra, on July 11 last year, to a landing place near Austin, Nev.

With the unfamiliar, mild conditions in Alma-Ata, Yardley finished in the middle of the pack, but she was hardly disappointed.

“Each one of us had their own agenda for making the trip,” Yardley said. “Mine was wanting to meet the Russians.

“Flying was just an excuse for me to get a chance to meet the Russian people. I have been a longtime foe of how the media represents those people, and I wanted to debunk that own personal feeling.”

Greblo also was interested in the cultural aspects of the trip.

“Wherever we went, we had a crowd of really interested Soviet pilots and people who wanted to know more about our sport and our country and about the people in our country,” Greblo said. “And you could just see the excitement in their eyes as they’d listen to you.

“But this was a hang-gliding competition, so most of the conversation was centered around that. They would want to know about the cost of our equipment and about our flying sites and how you learn to fly in our country. But they also want to visit our country, so they want to know about the cost of living and the cost of travel.

“They were really open, though, and they would talk about anything you wanted to talk about. If you wanted to get into politics, they were happy to get into politics. They were very friendly and very open.”

Dodson sent a letter to President Mikhail S. Gorbachev in hopes of setting up a meeting between the Sylmar contingent and the Soviet leader in the spirit of peace and friendship. But the letter went unanswered.

Dodson was not sure why his request did not receive a response, but he did have an idea about why the Soviets dominated the flying competition.

“(The Soviets) were more familiar with the site and the area, and they knew where the thermals were breaking off,” Dodson said.

Thermals are large funnels of hot air that rise from the ground in a circular motion and are sometimes visible on the ground as dust devils. Thermals can lift a glider 1,000 feet over the launch site and turn a normal 20-30 minute ride into four hours of soaring.

“The conditions were not that good,” Dodson said. “It rained almost every day or evening and that slows down the thermal activity, because it cools the ground.”

The U.S. contingent, which stayed two weeks in the Soviet Union, remained upbeat, and most are planning to return to Alma-Ata next year.

“We’re going to arrange some more trips,” Greblo said. “You know, hang gliding is pretty unique in itself, in that you’re not only doing something that is exciting but also visual. So to go to different places and fly in different countries over different terrain features, like the Alps or the mountains of Mongolia or in Siberia, that’s pretty neat. You get to go to places where few Americans have been before.

“It’s sort of a special sport too, which tends to give you common ground with whoever you’re with, wherever you are. You’re sharing one of those special sports and special feelings. It’s almost as if you have been friends for a long time.”