Page 85 - Demo

THEDREAMOFFor thousands of years, humans have dreamed of taking to the skies. The ancient Greeks told the legend of Icarus, a boy who flies so high that the sun melts his manmade wings and he crashes down to Earth. Across history, many more people have died after jumping from a tower orcliff with wings that didn%u2019t quite work. Flying, for humans, seemed an impossibility.Yet many continued to dream of flying. One such dreamer was the great 15thcentury artist and inventor Leonardo da Vinci. He studied the flight of birds and even designed his own flying machines, but they%u2014and he%u2014never left the ground.Five hundred years later, standing on a windy hill in North Carolina, in the United States, I was about to make the dream come true.Unlike Leonardo, I had the help of a hang glider%u2014a light, modern machine that makes flying simple and safe enough even for tourist entertainment. I held on to the hang glider as tightly as I could. Terrified, I ran down the hill, and suddenly, I was running in the air. I was flying! What athrill! Now I wanted more.ABCDA hang gliding enthusiast in Japan enjoys a view of Mount Fuji.FLIGHTby Nancy Shute Unit 12A175