Summary
When you're blowing glass, you're creating something out of a molten blob of 2,200-degree glass. And you can't set it down. You have to do it now. You have to live in the moment, and it's the same with hang gliding. You have to deal with the conditions that nature is presenting you, with the thermals. If one comes along and you want to stay aloft, you have to take it. It's kind of the same with glass, you have to finish what you start. You have to keep going and it's challenging sometimes when it's not working out. There's a great deal of satisfaction when you're finished. When you land your glider ... you have a great feeling of accomplishment. Same thing when you make a piece of glass, and you look at it the next day.
Yeah, I don't know why there are so few women. Apparently a few years back we got stuck with the "extreme sport" label. That may have turned a lot of women away. Our current demographics are that women hang glider pilots make up less than 10 percent of our membership. Probably 5 percent of hang glider pilots are women. Back in the '70s ... hang gliding, statistically, it was not a safe activity. People were using equipment they made at home, they were falling, getting hurt, so we got this reputation that it was a death-defying sport. Of course, that's not the case now. We've come a long way, we have great equipment. [Even now] people just kind of look at you like you're strapped to a kite. They don't think of the fact that we're flying fairly sophisticated aircraft that's been highly engineered. It takes a special kind of person to hang glide. It's a very cerebral sport and not incredibly physically demanding.See the full content of this document
Extract
Lisa Tate
Boise hang gliding pilot Lisa Tate transcends the stereotype that women don't fly. Not only is she currently the U.S. Hang Gliding and Paragliding Association's first female president, she is also the only Idahoan to have held the position. At the same time, Tate is a professional glass blowing artisan. Her work combines...
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