I’ve been in touch with Paul Olson in Racine, Wisconsin, who is the US dealer for the Doodlebug (made by hand in UK), which is a lightweight power unit that attaches to ordinary hang gliders.
Here’s his U-Tube presentation:
I’m hoping to get enough students together in the spring or summer to host him for a training session. He teaches ‘scooter-launching’ by the way, and Carol has a suitable scooter.
With a hang glider, scooter-launched, you can find thermals (there’s one under each cumulus cloud) to take you up as high as you need to go, then end up on the ground where you launched, which is a huge advantage over the old way of schlepping hang gliders to ridge tops, then getting retrieved at the landing site.
The Falcon hang gliders, which Paul also sells, can be packed small enough to fit in a commercial jet’s baggage compartment or under the deck of a sailboat.
A good hang glider (new) is around three grand and Doodlebug is another six grand but how much do you want to get to those pesky, fortified and surveilled mountaintop death arrays, long-range water gifting routes and remote underground bases? I REALLY want to get that done [Image Can Not Be Found]; tho I’ve already got some wings. Carol’s interested in teh doodlebug and she and I could fly together this way (my plane is stable at slow speed).
Paul suggests that 20 or 30 hours of unpowered soaring is enough to prepare someone for powered soaring.
HIs email addy is [email protected]
~Don