Taking Flight : More enthusiasts are finding ways to temporarily break free of earth’s bonds.

Dave Michaelson, gearing up for his latest thrill-seeking adventure, had just one question for the man taking responsibility for his life.

“Has anyone ever been hurt?” he asked Joe Greblo, the hang-gliding instructor about to escort him on a ride through the hazy sky high above Sylmar.

“I’ve done over 2,500 tandem flights, and the most that’s happened to anyone I’ve been with is a skinned knee, so you look pretty good.”

Michaelson smiled. He wasn’t going to panic now. Strapped to the glider by a sturdy harness, he put his arms around Greblo’s back. They ran three steps down a wooden ramp, and took flight.

In the San Fernando Valley, he is far from alone. From the courageous souls who parachute from airplanes to the unintimidated who glide off cliffs, the Valley is filled with people who love to spend time high above the land. Whether in packs or going solo, they soar through the sky with a grace normally reserved for the birds flocking nearby.

“I don’t care what I’m doing,” said Ted Boyse, who spends almost every weekend in the sky. “All I want to do is fly.”

Each year, more and more are taking to the skies, according to those who run schools and above-ground programs in the Valley.

“It gets better every year,” Greblo said. “It just takes the public time to warm up to these activities.”

Or cool off. The hot weather months are a popular time for these men and women of flight. The heat of the Valley only intensifies their search for an escape in the air. Greblo said that each 1,000 feet above the ground, the air is 3.5 degrees cooler. (The smog, incidentally, pilots and jumpers say, is no worse in the sky than it is on land.)

But the air may become an expensive retreat, ranging from $75 for a hot-air balloon ride to almost $4,000 in new hang-gliding equipment. Although, for para-gliding and hang gliding, the costs are limited after the initial equipment purchase, those who want to take regular trips in hot-air balloons or sky-dive incur expenses that go nearly as high as their altitude. Here is a rundown of four aerial activities:

Hang Gliding

The 45-minute ride on the dirt road up Kagel Mountain in the heart of the Angeles National Forest was bumpy, much more treacherous, it would turn out, than the voyage ahead. The nine passengers disembarked from the van at the top of the mountain--3,500 feet above sea level and 2,200 feet above the landing site--for another Sunday of defying gravity. About 50 other enthusiasts had already arrived at the launch site, assembling their gliders and checking out wind conditions.

“As usual, it’s like Grand Central or LAX here,” said Kris Greblo, Joe’s wife.

Most of them are in their 20s or 30s and have been coming to Kagel for years.

“Some of us are gypsies,” said Cindy Benti, 29, of Culver City. “We know people at sites all over the country. There’s always a room where we can stay. The social thing is kind of neat.”

They are so devoted that they don’t mind the long preparation time, which includes the trip up the mountain, the half an hour to get the glider ready, and the hours and hours it might take before the winds are smooth enough to launch. Gliders rely on slight turbulence and low-velocity winds. Not even the most skilled can take off if the winds go over 25 m.p.h.

But the die-hards are willing to wait as long as it takes.

“The feeling of achievement is so incredible,” said Stacey Board, 28, of Sunland, “that I’m happy if I get an hour of flying time. What waiting? What drive? . . . When I’m hang gliding, all my senses are working really sharp. You become totally focused on what you’re doing. It’s kind of hard to describe it without sounding like a goofball.”

Tracey Kuhlin doesn’t worry about how she sounds. She’s only interested in how she soars. The glider takes her far away from her troubles.

“I go down that ramp,” Kuhlin, 31, said, “and I feel like I’m running away from everything.” Last year, Kuhlin was sued when her dog attacked a woman and broke her back. “I wondered whether I should fly because I was so angry,” she added, “but when you’re up there, nothing on the ground matters.”

A typical flier like Kuhlin will stay in the air for several hours. Most land at the Sylmar Flight Park, run by the 250-member Sylmar Hang Gliding Assn., although they are known to glide for miles, and land in the middle of nowhere. They’ll hide their equipment, and hope to hitch back to where they parked their car, returning later to get their gear. One pilot said the best strategy is to land near a gathering of people, impress them with exploits of the just-completed dangerous mission, and then politely ask for a ride. They claim it works.

Over the years, the sport has also become a lot safer. During the 1970s hundreds of people were killed in hang-gliding accidents, according to the U.S. Hang Gliding Assn. in Colorado Springs, Colo. That’s when the equipment wasn’t as sturdy--some were even made using plastic trash bags--and the pilots didn’t need to be certified. During the 1980s the activity averaged about five to 10 deaths a year, according to the association. Still, as a precaution, pilots carry parachutes in case the glider malfunctions.

Today, the gliders, weighing about 55 pounds, are made of aircraft aluminum, covered with Dacron, the same material used extensively for boat sails. Most hang-gliding groups require that pilots complete extensive skill tests supervised by certified instructors, and pass written exams. Normally, it takes 15 to 25 days of training--about five hours per lesson--to become skilled enough to do solo flights from Kagel.

They also must have a larger bank account; a used glider usually costs about $1,500, a new one $3,500. A glider rents for about $75 a day, but most pilots buy the equipment.

“I like to let them experience high-altitude flying before they make a big investment,” said Joe Greblo, “This way, if they’re going to get scared, this is a good time to find out. Hang gliding isn’t for everybody.”

Well, it apparently is for Dave Michaelson.

“Life’s pretty short,” he said. “I want to do as many things as I can.”

Para-Gliding

If hang gliding is a communal activity, para-gliding, its close relative, is geared more toward the individual. The glider is a lot like a parachute, except it is designed to go farther, stay in the air longer, and land more gently.

It fits easily into a backpack, and there are many more places to land. One normally doesn’t have to worry about getting a ride back to the car because they don’t stray as far off course, although some para-gliders have known to travel 70 miles.

On a typical Sunday afternoon at Kagel, amid the hang gliders, some choose the para-glider instead. Depending on the winds, it may be easier to take off, and the flight slightly less chaotic.

Another popular site is a field in Simi Hills, just off a quiet residential street. Several days a week, Ted Boyse, who owns L.A. Paragliding in Van Nuys, teaches about a half a dozen newcomers to fly. Boyse estimates that each week, about 40 para-glider pilots take to the skies.

On one recent muggy afternoon, Larry Del Valle, 34, a psychology student at Cal State Northridge, made his first attempt since 1980. Asked why he was trying again, he seemed offended.

“Why breathe?” Del Valle answered.

Del Valle had acquired a pilot’s license, but stopped flying when it became too expensive. Now, he was determined to do it without a motor.

“You just feel like you’re a bird,” he said.

With Boyse giving him instructions on the radio--each student is equipped with one--Del Valle looked more like a wounded bird. His takeoff was rocky, and he was awkward about shifting his weight properly, he had trouble staying calm in the air and his landing was rough. Afterward, though, he walked quickly up the hill to try again. Altogether, he took about a dozen rides, getting better each time. Soon, he was catching the thermal--that’s what fliers call the air current that helps them maintain a high altitude--and having a blast.

Like hang gliding, however, para-gliding can become expensive, costing several thousand dollars to get started. But after that, there are no site fees or additional equipment required. Flying was never so cheap.

Sky-Diving

Alice Clarke believes in facing her fears. That’s why she decided to jump out of an airplane.

“I figure this will be a great Adrenalin rush,” said Clarke, 30, of Los Angeles, who is afraid of heights. “I didn’t sleep last night.”

The job of reassuring her was left to Bill Reed, who runs a sky-diving class on Tuesday through Thursday nights in Van Nuys. Reed, 54, who served in Vietnam, has taught more than 17,000 first-time jumpers. Danger is not his concern.

“I drive a car. I breathe L.A. air,” he told one recent class. “What about the guy who shot those lawyers the other day? I hear people who smoke say how dangerous it is to sky-dive, and it makes me laugh.”

In a three-hour class Reed explains how to use the main and spare parachutes and shows students videos of other jumpers. Most of his students are ready for their first jumps the day after the class.

But, just in case, Reed continued to calm everyone’s nerves.

“It doesn’t take too much courage,” he insisted. “We are not experimenting with a parachute. If we didn’t think they would work, it wouldn’t be a sport and it certainly wouldn’t be a business. . . . As soon as people land for the first time, the first thing they want to do is go out there again.”

Clarke and her friend, Butch Francis, 30, of Santa Monica, weren’t thinking about an encore. They were preoccupied with their pre-dive jitters.

For months, sky-diving was all they heard from their buddy, Jay Pacey, who finally persuaded his friends to give it a try. Clarke and Francis even persuaded another friend, Cari Hansen, 31, a visitor from Seattle, to come along. “I changed my plane reservation to do this,” Hansen said. “I was just here to visit friends.”

On the morning after the class, Clarke, Francis, Hansen and Pacey arrived at California City in the northern Antelope Valley to meet Reed and about a dozen others.

Reed takes jumpers there several days a week because of the wide-open landing spaces. He says this tiny, desert outpost is the ideal site for sky-divers. He estimates that about 600 jumpers parachute each week in California City.

As he reviewed some of the finer points of landing, Clarke psyched herself up. “I got to remember I paid good money to do this,” she said. “I could’ve gotten a silk dress.” (Altogether, for the class and jump, Clarke paid $149; additional jumps cost $44.50 apiece.)

After about an hour of preparation, Reed took his 17 jumpers aboard a Twin Otter plane. They circled the landing spot--a mile-long target filled with sand and gravel--and then, one by one, from 3,500 feet, the jumpers began to leap out of the plane, falling to the ground at 70 m.p.h.

Hansen was first.

Each had a radio to receive advice from a ground instructor, who first told them to make sure there were no rips in the parachute. If there are, the jumpers pull the handle on their reserve parachute.

“OK, now get over the target, Cari, and have a good time,” the instructor said. Cari followed the advice and after about 10 minutes in the air--the standard drop time--she landed right in the middle of the target. “I am amazed that I did that,” she said. “Once I got out of the plane, I felt like I was floating. The hardest part was getting yourself to get out.”

Clarke was next. Despite every effort, she missed the target by several hundred yards and scraped her legs and arms by landing on a bush. She walked slowly back, happy to just be alive. “When he (the instructor) said, ‘Turn around to the target,’ I’m thinking, ‘Where is the goddamn target?’. . . I think that was enough for me today.

Francis wanted more. “I want to go again. I want to go again.” Reed was right, he was hooked.

Hot-Air Ballooning

This time, nobody jumped off anything. Call it sightseeing in the air.

The site is Lancaster, sufficiently far away from buildings and heavily populated areas. The trips, organized by High Adventures in Granada Hills, cost $75 per person for a 30-minute ride and a champagne breakfast.

At 5:30 a.m. on one recent Saturday, nearly a dozen people met in the parking lot of a Carl’s Jr. on Ave. K to prepare for that morning’s ride. Iain Kite--he swears it’s his real name--who owns High Adventures, checked out the winds to determine which of three possible launching sites he would use this morning. After a few minutes, he decided on an unused parking lot at a now-closed Mitsubishi car dealership.

The 11 passengers for this day’s two 30-minutes flights had a lot in common. Except for one person, the trip was a surprise gift from their lovers. There was a lot of romance in the air. Kite said usually about 15 people go on hot-air balloon rides each week.

“I didn’t know what we were doing,” said Daniel Gordon, 22, of Hollywood, whose girlfriend, Laina Scolnick, had arranged the surprise weeks in advance. “I was trying to stay awake. Our first destination was the 7-Eleven to get some coffee.”

Somewhat refreshed, Gordon, along with the other passengers, waited for Kite and his assistants to get the balloon ready.

First, they put a tarp over the asphalt to protect the balloon from damage. Then, they inflated the balloon with a fan, and once the balloon was almost filled, they turned on a burner to give it the required lift.

Minutes later, the balloon, carrying six passengers, including Kite, took off. Where it was going to go, nobody, not even Kite, could be totally certain.

This time, the balloon, which went up to about 1,100 feet above the ground, drifted to the southeast, as a chase vehicle followed. Dan Patten, the driver, kept the balloon in sight the whole time--Lancaster is perfect because its streets are still deserted at 7 in the morning, and it has a lot of rural areas for landings.

Usually, when the balloon finally does come down, the chase driver has to negotiate rough terrain. That can often mean trespassing on private property to meet the balloon passengers and drive them back to home base.

“Once a farmer started yelling at us,” Patten said.

Fortunately, on this day, the balloon landed on a field about a hundred yards from the nearest residence. Still, the pickup drove slowly so it wouldn’t kick up dirt on any crops or draw too much attention.

Once back at the parking lot, everyone indulged in some champagne, bagels, salami, cheese and crackers.

“We were just up in the sky in a basket,” said Scolnick to her boyfriend. “Can you believe that?”