Gloria Culver'.., age 14, of Baltimore, Md., for her question:
WHO WAS THE FIRST GLIDER PILOT?
Almost 100 years before Wilbur and Orville Wright made their first successful powered flight in 1903, an English inventor named Sir George Cayley was working on a flying machine. In 1809 Cayley built the first successful full size glider.
The world's first glider pilot turned out. to be Cayley's coachman. In 1853, Cayley built a crude glider that was`able to carry the coachman across a small valley. Historians agree that this was the world's first manned glider flight, even though the coachman had no control over the aircraft.
A German inventor and engineer named Otto Lilienthal became the world's first person to actually pilot a glider in flight. From 1891 until 1896, Lilienthal made about 2,500 glider flights. He eventually died in a glider grash.
Another pioneer glider pilot who died in an aircrash was a Scottish engineer named Percy Pilcher. Before he crashed, however, he won a spot in history in 1897 by becoming the first person to use a towing technique to launch a glider.
Before they made their first powered flight, the Wright brothers experimented with gliders at Kitty Hawk, N.C. In fact in 1911, Orville made the first documented soaring flight in a glider. He used slope winds on a flight that lasted almost 10 minutes.
After powered airplanes were developed, interest in gliders declined for a time. But interest was revived in Germany following the end of World War I in 1918. Many engineers turned to aerodonetics, the study of glider flight, and by the early 1920's they had developed aircraft with advanced designs.
Large gliders towed by airplanes were used to transport soldiers and artillery during World War II. In the invasion of Belgium in 1940, German became the first country to use such gliders.
Today gliding is a competitive sport in many parts of the United States. An organization called the Soaring Society of America oversees the awarding of badges for flights of specified distance, duration and height. The society also regulates regional and national gliding contests.
World championship gliding competitions are held every two years.
The most common event in gliding contests today is a race against time. The contestants fly around triangular courses that may total up to 620 miles long. Gliders have crossed the finishing line at speeds of more than 150 miles per hour.
Today, West Germany ranks as the chief producer of high performance competition gliders.
A form of gliding called hang gliding, or sky surfing, became popular in the United States during the early 1970's.