Catching air

Danette Goulet

They say it’s an adrenaline rush to rival surfing -- one that is

incomprehensible until experienced.

That might explain the rapidly growing number of glider pilots poised

on the edge of the cliffs along Pacific Coast Highway each afternoon and

evening.

With legs braced apart, thumbs on the controls they perch there --

pumped and eager. Their excitement is nearly palpable.

From the shore below they appear to be playing -- merely enjoying a

relaxing pastime like flying a kite. But this new generation of glider

pilots is serious, hard-core and dedicated to what they consider an

extreme sport.

“Sitting and watching doesn’t do it justice,” said Huntington Beach

resident Tom Freas, who grew up watching his uncle Paul Kyete fly balsa

wood planes in the afternoons when the surf was blown out.

“He’s been flying the balsa wood planes since the 60s,” Freas said.

“We’d surf Baja. He always took his planes and I would drink beer.”

It all looked exceedingly boring to him, Freas said.

The Balsa wood planes, they explained, took at least 45 hours to

build. One wrong move, or a loss of winds, and down the plane went. And

back to the garage Kyete went for about 10 hours of repair.

This kind of flying is hobby flying, Freas said, and totally different

from the craze sweeping the nation.

Using a relatively new hybrid foam, Freas is one of an increasing

number who make these new gliders that are used for combat fighting.

These “dog fights” are what many of the new generation of pilots say

provides the adrenaline high.

Using the wind and radio transmitters, pilots execute dips and rolls

and attempt to knock each other out of the sky without bringing down

their own glider.

“The rush is probably the combat -- chasing after the other guy and

taking him out while staying up yourself,” said Huntington Beach resident

Weston Zellman, who builds gliders he calls Combat Wings.

Zellman got hooked on building and fighting gliders when he worked in

a hobby shop.

“I’ve got a 3-D video game here,” he explained. “I got tired of

sitting in front of a screen. And it’s good competition.”

Zellman, Freas and Kyete are part of an experienced group of glider

pilots who fly the 4-foot planes over Huntington’s dog beach. They

compete in the sky as well as in the market. While Zellman builds Combat

Wings, Freas and his uncle have a glider company Wing Warrior.

While both companies have Web sites neither needs to actively market

-- buyers find them, Freas said.

Wing Warriors has shipped the planes all over the U.S., he said, with

a majority of orders coming from Washington. They sell their gliders

completely assembled and ready to go for $260 or a kit to build your own

for $60.

But there is much more to the rising sport than most first-time pilots

realize, they warn. There is a complete set of etiquetteto be adhered to,

as well as a learning curve.

“When rookies show up [at the cliffs] we nicely tell them they might

want to start at Seapoint and Garfield,” said Freas, who added that the

cliff group is careful to police themselves lest they lose their premier

spot.

The training location looks out over the Bolsa Chica where there are

no beach goers or traffic to worry about.

Etiquette includes calling out the radio frequency of a plane before

turning it on. If, by chance, someone there is using that frequency, 20

minutes of flying before trading off is proper practice, Kyete said.

It is a friendly interactive sport the pilot said, and they are all

happy to fill “newbies” in on the rules.

* DANETTE GOULET is the city editor. She can be reached at (714)

965-7170 or by e-mail at o7 danette.goulet@latimes.comf7 .