35.960431,-75.633144,Jockey Ridge State Park, OB, North Carolina,
USA

http://www.ourstate.com/john-harris/

John Harris learned to fly in the 1970s with a piece of nylon. And
still today, whether he’s holding a kite string in his hands on the Nags Head
beach or strapping a hang glider to his back on Jockey’s Ridge, he enjoys
knowing that the only thing keeping the contraption aloft is the breeze beneath
him.

There was a moment in 1974 when a man who lives on the coast stood on the edge
of Grandfather Mountain, perched like a bird 1,600 feet above the base. In this
moment he realized that one of two outcomes lay before him: death or history.

He came a long way for this moment. He drove 400 miles from the sandy shores of
the Outer Banks with two friends, up the winding mountain roads, heads bobbing,
stomachs yelling, hearts palpitating.

Below this man lay jagged rocks, brown bears, and a wide expanse of rough, spiky
limbs waiting to catch him. The man had a son, a mother, two brothers, a sister,
nephews, and nieces — people to grieve him if he died.

The July sun caused sweat to form on the small of his back and the palms of his
hands. The man stood, shoulders slightly bent forward from the weight of science
on his back. Strapped to him was a hang glider — nothing more than a sheet of
nylon stretched across some aluminum bars.

He walked away from the edge. Then he turned around, sprinted toward the ledge,
and jumped.

On that day, July 13, 1974, John Harris made history jumping off Grandfather
Mountain. Hugh Morton, who owned the mountain, took a photo of him preparing to
jump. He looked like a giant bird with one large wing.

....

Back in Nags Head, on top of Jockey’s Ridge, in Harris’s favorite spot to fly,
the woman strapped to the hang glider finishes her lesson. Harris and the two
instructors carry the Eaglet to the bottom of the dunes. The wind pushes back
Harris’s hair, revealing lines across the 66-year-old’s forehead. Sand blows
into his hair and clings to his black jacket. He bends over the Eaglet and rolls
up the blue-and-white nylon wing. The wind picks up. Behind Harris on the dunes,
a man fastened to a red-and-white glider hunches over in the wind, eyes
squinting to see. The breeze keeps pushing him back. “The wind is too strong
today,” Harris says.

This month marks the 41st anniversary of Harris’s Hang Gliding Spectacular and
Air Games. Every May, he invites hang-gliding enthusiasts from across the world
to bring their gliders to Jockey’s Ridge and fly above the dunes. Hundreds of
gliders will span across the park, a small city of mechanical birds. Harris will
join them for his yearly flight. He’ll walk to the top of the dunes with his old
glider. He’ll clip into the harness and stand up with the weight of science on
his back. Then he’ll run, feet pedaling through the sand. The wind will lift
him. And then — if only for this one brief moment — he will fly.