Winging it in North Carolina

Magical things happen atop the great sand dunes in Nags Head, N.C. The dunes include the largest one on the East Coast -- it soars 80 to 100 feet above most everything else and offers fine views in all directions: the gleaming Atlantic to the east, a picturesque estuary to the west, and beach houses and tourist swarms below.

"I've been living here 25 years, and every New Year's Eve we go up to the dune to watch the sun set," said Leslie Deligio, 59, a nurse, as we sipped beers at the Outer Banks Brewing Station brewpub on the teeming coastline strip. "Then we come down and party."

Another local leaned over and offered his own bit of dune mythology: Certain more lascivious activities are known to happen up there. Wink, nudge.

However, it was the Outer Banks' legendary winds and sand for soft landings -- not the extracurricular activities -- that lured the Wright Brothers there from Ohio for their famous Kitty Hawk flights of 1903. Today that same combination summons thousands of tourists for world-class kite flying, hang gliding and intense games of make-believe.

"We need to get to the top of the mountain!" yelled a 4-year-old as his little feet chugged up the searing dune one toasty summer afternoon. "It's the only way we will survive!"

I, however, skipped the make-believe and went right for the hang gliding.

Kitty Hawk Kites, one of the area's oldest outfitters, offers four beginning and four advanced courses a day off the area's dunes, and they appeal to a wide swath -- from 9-year-old girls with braids to grandfathers in shorts and white athletic socks pulled high. My lesson came on a hot afternoon moderated by warm ocean breezes.

The gift of flight

Our flights would not be epic, we were told; if we were lucky, we would travel 125 feet -- 5 more than the Wright Brothers on their first flight on Dec. 17, 1903. Didn't matter.

"The feeling of weightlessness is the same at 18 feet as 18,000 feet," our lecturer said. And then came a warning: "Do not panic. Panicked is no state to be in in a hang glider."

That, of course, made us only more nervous. But out we went, from the classroom to the hot sand, where our instructor, Hunter Deakle, quietly admitted to me that he was new to the sport, even though he became a quick addict.

"Unpowered flight," said Deakle, 26. "It's birdlike, man. People dream of this stuff."

Well, sort of. Most first flights, mine included, ended with a quick thud, the glider's metal tip nosing into the sand. My first flight was a mere 20 or so feet, but my second extended to about 40 feet. I don't remember looking at anything during that flight -- only the feeling of brief soaring.

"That was nice!" Deakle said. "It's because you had a sick takeoff."

"How do you know when your takeoff is sick?" I asked.

"You move all the energy from your legs to this," he said, and shook the glider. "There's not a lot of banging around. It's smooth."

We all had our moments, both high and low. Succeeding took equal amounts of concentration and absolute letting go. You knew it went well when, at the moment it seemed you should be heading back to terra firma, you stayed aloft. You defied your own expectation.

"I call that one the IHOP special," said Joe Hewitt, 44, of Raleigh, N.C., as he brushed sand off his body. "I pancaked. I think there might be a spot behind one of my molars that doesn't have sand in it."

My last flight was my best -- I traveled about 100 feet. I was still short of the Wright Brothers but soared far enough to want to continue, to go farther and to go higher. After skydiving the first time, I knew it probably would be my last time. After five flying leaps off a 100-foot sand dune, all I wanted was more.

But the lesson was over. The sun was setting, the moon was rising and people with good sense to wait for the weather to break started filing across the dune with their children and their kites. The sand, scorching hot by day, was turning silky and cool, and I sat on it to watch a dozen kites bob and weave through the sky.