The Joy of Flight

Recently my good friend Linda Salamone's daughter Dana began her foray into the wonderful world of free flight and wrote about it. Her words convey so well what a great joy and privilege it is to be able to hang glide. Following is a copy of her article as on Wills Wings website:


I’ve been a peripheral member of the hang gliding world for a long time. Well, long by my standards as a 22 year old. My mom, Linda Salamone, dragged my siblings and I into the sport thirteen years ago. And we HATED it. “Going flying” was, by our standards, not cool. It meant that we’d be stranded atop some lame mountain site in Upstate New York with the worst company ever, each other.

As everyone got a bit older a wiser (or so we’d all like to think), mom began flying competitively. And doing well. Not even just for a chick, she was doing well even for a dude. By 2007, I’d been asked whether I flew at least 1000 times. No joke. And the response was getting old: “No no no—I’m just a retrieve driver at these insane comps she does” was my usual. The spring after my sophomore year at the university, I decided it was time. I’d learn how to fly.

I spent two months foot launching Eaglets off of a training hill just outside of Rochester. On the second day, I had a meltdown. I had run down the lower half of the slope what felt like thirty times, and could NOT get my feet off of the ground. I wasn’t trusting the glider, or myself. Most importantly, my mom was watching—perfectly aware of my thinking “Damn, the shoes I have to fill are just way too big.”

Soon enough, she stopped coming to training. Inevitably, I started improving. I would get home around 10pm on weeknight evenings absolutely exhausted. In spite of this, I could feel excitement and pride surging through me. I’d bounce in the front door teeming with energy and babble on and on about my ten-second flights from the top of the training hill to Mom and Mark.

This went on until July, when I relocated to Vermont, and then Spain for autumn. Flying evaporated from my life with ease, as I had a multitude of other things to fill the void with. I continued going to comps as a driver, and would scheme my way into the air via Dragon Fly or a tandem. Each time I landed, I’d kick myself for letting my training slip through my fingers so easily.

Dana with Mark Fruitiger taking a 'tourist' tandem.

This April was different. I was hanging out at the Ridge throwing a Frisbee around with a few comp pilots, noticing how smooth the air was and how gorgeous the sunset was about to be. James Tindell approached me and asked if I was inclined to fly. My response: “Hell yes, James.” After some discussion of my experience flying, I got into the bottom of the tandem and we took two breathtakingly beautiful flights. When I landed, I raced over to my mom thinking “this is it, this is, it this is it---I’m going to learn to fly.”

Flights continued daily, and each time we landed, I felt like I’d learned something new. I’d fly in the morning, and would bop around for the rest of the morning basking in my pride. Here I was, surrounded by the world’s best competition pilots, and I’m just beaming because I could keep the tandem behind the tug. Rather than going on about my flights, I tried to internalize what I had learned and experienced that morning. I feel like mom asked me “So, how’d the flight go” about ten times daily, but I never really wanted to get psyched about it in front of her. I wanted it to be my own. Just for myself. “Eh, it was good. I need to let the tug really pull me around turns though” was a standard, blasé response. Meanwhile, I’d be teeming with excitement on the inside. And I could be seen blabbering like a lunatic to the likes of Jeff O’Brien, pretending my energy was contagious and that it’d secure the comp pilots a long, safe, and fast flight. At some point, I started imagining that the intense flying-related energy surrounding the Ridge was feeding my learning process and helping get my feet off of the ground—propelling me upward.

On one of the last mornings of the comp, I woke up and flew with Eric, another wonderful tandem instructor. We had a great launch and tow, and the entire time he kept on saying “Oh yeah, you’re ready girl.” And finally I had to say “Eric if you’re going to say that, you better mean it! You know how much I want to solo!” We pinned off and went through the motions of boating down, setting up my landing and getting us to solid ground safely. Once we stopped rolling, Eric started climbing out of his harness and said “Alright hun, hop out.” Immediately I said “Well, damn. I really wanted to take another flight.” Eric laughed and said “Yeah, Dana. You’re going to get another flight. In the solo glider. Now get out!”

Shakily, I somehow made my way over to the nearby Falcon. I took in my surroundings before climbing in and noticed that my mom was thankfully out of sight. James Tindell knelt in front of me and ran me through the basics of what I was about to experience and, as far as I was concerned, how to stay alive. I’m sure I just nodded through the entire thing, because all that I remember about that jittery pre-launch situation was how violently my calves were shaking as my toes pressed into the foot bar of the harness. I. Was. So. Nervous. But I knew what was about to happen. I’d seen literally thousands of launches before. It was merely a change of perspective---my role had changed to that of a participant, rather than an observer. And a vital participant at that.

Next thing I know, I’m flying off of the cart and laughing hysterically. Hysterically. I couldn’t believe it. I was doing this alone. I wasn’t in the tandem, and I damn well wasn’t with anyone else in the air. I was finally flying. Alone. In what felt like a Ferrari. I laughed for my entire flight. I pulled in and pinned off once Carrie waved me away, tucked in my bridle, and it hit me all over again. Now that the tug was gone, I realized how alone I was in the air. As I watched him sink away and make it back to the field, I started talking to myself. Laughing, talking, singing. (Appropriately, M.I.A.’s “Paper Planes” was the song that came to mind.) Like an absolutely insane person. Before I knew it, I was setting up my landing and on the ground. Safely. I realize now that I was still laughing hysterically as my mom ran at me shrieking “I can’t believe you just soloed---- and you didn’t tell me you were going to!” I got back onto the cart and flew again. Things went smoothly---- maybe because I had 4000 feet of glass to work my way down in.

Linda congratulating her daughter.

The rest of the day I floated along. I did a few more solos before my time at the Florida Ridge was over and the Race and Rally took us northward. By the end, I was landing soundly on my feet and ridiculously proud.

Dana on final during her first solo.

About a week after my first solo, I was having some deep conversations with Mike and Sean Glennon. At one point, Mike mentioned that his son is a pilot and asked what took me so long to get into flying after so many years of exposure. When I told him I thought that I may have previously been doing it for my mom, he admitted that he also wonders if his son has pursued flight to “make his father proud.” I told him that this time around, I had a few more years of knowledge of myself under my belt and was ready to take to the sky for me. My motivation had evolved into something much more intrinsic than it had been previously.

So, my “Summer of Flight” is underway, and I literally could not be more thrilled. While I obviously have an enormous amount of learning ahead of me, I can definitively say one thing: independent of what it is that gets us into the air in the first place, what matters is what keeps us there.

Dana taking off... solo these days.