Dogged Pilots Stay the Course : Hang Glider Devotees Carve Niche in Valley for Their Flights of Fancy

Up there in the sky above Burbank, it’s a bird . . . it’s a plane . . . it’s . . . Hang Dog.

Soaring above landfills, tract homes and mountain peaks, Hang Dog, a 6-year-old German shepherd named Baubi, is flying in tandem with his master, Ludwig von der Luhe, who is operating a hang glider. Despite a patch of brown air hovering over Sunland, they’re getting a bird’s-eye view of the Valley area, often from an altitude that would give most birds a case of vertigo.

As Hang Dog racks up the frequent-flier mileage, dozens of other hang gliders whoosh and swoop, their pilots enjoying the quintessential California experience: an activity that combines outdoor recreation, on-the-edge behavior and a certain kookiness. “You do this instead of drugs,” said Shawn Moran, a 33-year-old general contractor from Saugus.

It might come as a surprise that the Valley has a special place in the short history of hang gliding. High-altitude flying was practically invented here about 20 years ago. And today, the area is known worldwide for its friendly winds, well-maintained landing strip and mountaintop launch pad.

The pilots--human ones, that is--come from all over to catch a thermal, but most of them belong to the Sylmar Hang Gliding Assn., which considers the Valley its home turf. The SHGA has about 250 members, half of whom fly regularly. On a busy weekend day during peak spring or summer months, as many as 50 gliders are launched off the top of Kagel Mountain, a peak rising about 2,200 feet above the Valley floor.

Below the mountain is the L.Z., pilot vernacular for landing zone, a dusty slab by the Pacoima Wash. Today, homeowners in adjacent subdivisions and glider pilots coexist in harmony, but that wasn’t always so. In the 1970s, when the sport was in its infancy and generally unregulated, local pilots buzzed rooftops with impunity, landed in back yards and sometimes got themselves killed--four died in the late ‘70s. On weekends, spectators trashed the landing zone.

When homeowners complained to politicians, concerned pilots decided to act to preserve their sport. In 1983, 73 pilots met in a garage and formed the SHGA. The club put restrictions on spectators, enforced rules for pilots and massaged the community by forming a crime-busting air patrol. Pilots even turned into firefighters--once, a couple spotted a brush fire in the mountains, landed and put it out.

In 1983, a developer made a deal with the city of Sylmar, getting approval to build homes on 460 acres in exchange for donating 35 acres for community use. The land was divided among three organizations, including the SHGA. With a permanent L.Z., the club needed a permanent launch site. That wasn’t difficult. All they had to do was look directly at the mountains--the first prominent peak is Kagel Mountain. Searching Angeles National Forest topographical maps, pilots found fire roads leading to the summit and set their wind sock in concrete on a barren bluff.

The winds at Kagel are revered for their consistency. Because of the configuration of the mountain ranges surrounding the Valley, offshore winds that blow inland from the west are diverted into southeast winds by the time they hit the rocky face of Kagel Mountain. Good thermals--upward-spiraling warm air--are also almost always present in the area.

Two years ago, the weather conditions were so ideal that pilots had no trouble taking their gliders to 15,000 feet. Club records were also set that year for distance (179 miles one way to Palm Springs) and longest time aloft (8 hours 3 minutes).

Although the L.Z. is only about two miles from the launch, the trip takes a bumpy 40 minutes by car, causing logistic problems. “Hitching a ride up the hill,” as the pilots say, is often a major hassle. Getting down is easy: You just fly.

On a clear, cloudless day, Moran is getting his fix. It’s about 2 p.m., a late start, but the winds had been uncooperative until then. Moran shuttles five other pilots up Kagel Mountain, bouncing his pickup along a rutted fire road. Near the top, Moran spots an airborne glider “above the launch,” a reassuring sign that the “Wind God” is in a good mood.

The launch area is a large rolling knoll with a 360-degree view: the hazy San Fernando Valley below, the crystal-clear Antelope Valley behind and to the north. When Moran’s contingent arrives, the glider ranks grow to about a dozen. Assembling the 32-foot-wide delta-winged craft takes 20 to 30 minutes. With the gliders positioned at a 45-degree angle to the wind--to keep them pinned down--they look like a fighter squadron lined up smartly on the Tarmac.

One of the fanciest gliders belongs to Matthew Spinelli, co-owner of a Sylmar hang-gliding shop. The glider, a state-of-the-art Moyes XS, has a block-and-tackle system to loosen or stiffen the sails, Mylar on the leading edge of the wing, heavyweight Dacron on the trailing edge and tip fins to lower stall speed.

The XS costs about $4,000, a sharp difference from the cheap bamboo-and-bubblegum models made of canvas back in the early ‘70s. Modern pilots also need a pod harness costing $600 and a glider “dashboard,” an $800 German instrument that measures altitude, wind speed and relative lift. Toss in an additional $80 for a helmet; add $270 more for one with a two-way radio.

While Spinelli’s pod harness--a cocoon-shaped object resembling a sleeping bag--comes with rocket-deployed parachute, some of the pilots had the old-fashioned hand-pulled parachutes incorporated into their harness. Not that the parachutes are routinely used--last year, only two were reported deployed by club members, one accidentally--but having them gives a secure feeling.

“It’s a last resort,” said Marty Foulger, a 36-year-old video-game designer from Sierra Madre. “If your wires fail, if your base tubes fail, if you have a doubt, throw it out,” meaning pull the rip cord.

After the pilots finish assembling their 60-pound kites, they do a “hang check,” verifying that their harness is indeed hooked to the glider, and then take turns going off the launch ramp. Facing the wind and downtown Burbank, the plywood ramp slants downward but doesn’t drop off the side of a sheer cliff. Because of the aerodynamics of the glider, pilots don’t have to jump into a void to become airborne; running down the ramp, they get gently lifted into the air by the onrushing wind, like butterflies on a branch.

“I need 15 miles an hour of wind to launch,” Foulger said. “If the wind is seven miles an hour, that means I have to run eight miles an hour down the ramp. But we’ve launched here in dead calm. All it means is that you have to run faster.”

Foulger, who has been hang gliding seriously for about 18 months, estimates that he took about 200 flights on bunny hills before daring to make his first launch off Kagel. It was a tandem flight with his instructor, and Foulger remembers his first look at the ramp. “It was very intimidating,” he says. “It looked like it went off to nowhere.”

After launching, the gliders play in the lazy air, looking from the ground like a flock of buzzards circling for the kill. But they have to be wary of one another--and aircraft. The club shares air space with three airports (Burbank, Whiteman and Van Nuys) and has to follow Federal Aviation Administration regulations, such as staying below a certain altitude at certain locations and not flying into clouds or after dark.

Glider pilots frequently look down and see jumbo jets a thousand feet below. “When you see an airliner under you, you know you’re definitely high,” Spinelli said. Within an hour of launching, Spinelli and the rest of the pilots are back at the L.Z. “The thermal activity was not as good as we had hoped,” Foulger said as he takes his glider apart. “There was not a lot of rowdy air.”

But the thrill was still there. “Hang gliding,” he said, “is a total rush. It’s floating, it’s flying, it’s as close to being a bird as you can possibly get.”

Even if you’re a dog.