From the moment she saw the people soaring through the air from the cliffs near the Atlantic Ocean, Sally Tucker knew she wanted to fly.

The people were hang gliding. Hang gliding is a sport that became popular about 10 years ago. Hang gliders are aircraft. They look like kites—with a harness for human riders. People who hang glide use air currents to sail through the air, usually beginning their ride at the top of high cliffs. Hang gliding become popular in California, where Tucker makes her home. She couldn't wait to try it.

"The biggest problem was getting someone to teach me," she said.

Tucker, a graduate of Gallaudet University and the California School for the Deaf in Fremont and a resident of Los Angeles, California, finally found Rob McKenzie. McKenzie, a hearing hang gliding instructor, learned signs so that he could communicate with Tucker.

That was many years ago.

Now Tucker is a certified hang gliding instructor—and the first certified teacher of hang gliding to be deaf. Two of her students are deaf.

Hang gliding is not Tucker's only adventurous sport. She motorcycles, jet skis, snow skis, and bikes long distance. She has hosted several events for the World Recreation Association of the Deaf, including a houseboating trip on a western lake. In high school she played track, volleyball, basketball, and baseball. She loves swimming and camping, too. In 2000, she plans to host an 8-day white water rafting trip down the Colorado River through the Grand Canyon.

She tried to steer—but she was rising skyward, pulled by the air of a growing thunderstorm.

Only once has she experienced danger while hang gliding, she said. She was enjoying her ride through the air when she felt herself pulled steadily higher. She tried to steer, but could not. She was rising skyward. The problem was an approaching thunderstorm.

"I was caught in a 'cloud suck,'" she explained. In a cloud suck, a storm causes a difference in air pressure so great that everything in its path is sucked inside. Airborne human bodies, like everything else, are swept into the storm, like dirt into a vacuum cleaner.

"Finally I escaped," remembered Tucker, "and I was so scared. My whole body was shaking with fear for about 15 minutes."

It didn't stop her though. She didn't land, but continued flying, staying in the air another six hours before she brought her hang glider back to earth.

Tucker has been grounded recently with a broken elbow. She plans to return to the air as soon as the doctor gives the okay.

General comments may be sent to: Ken.Kurlychek@gallaudet.edu
Last modified November 10, 1998
Copyright © 1998, All Rights Reserved
Laurent Clerc National Deaf Education Center

Gallaudet University 800 Florida Ave. NE Washington, DC 20002-3695