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The Glider Flying Handbook is designed to aid pilots in achieving their goals in aviation and to provide the knowledge and practical information needed to attain private, commercial, and flight instructor category ratings for gliders. This handbook, in conjunction with the Pilot’s Handbook of Aeronautical Knowledge, FAA-H-8083-25 (as revised), is a source of basic knowledge for certification as a glider pilot and instructor. There are numerous other commercial sources available to the pilot for reference that should be obtained for additional information. 

## Gliders—The Early Years 

The fantasy of flight led people to dream up intricate designs in an attempt to imitate the flight of birds. Leonardo da Vinci sketched a vision of flying machines in his 15th century manuscripts. His work consisted of a number of wing designs including a human-powered ornithopter, the name derived from the Greek word for bird. Centuries later, when others began to experiment with his designs, it became apparent that the human body could not sustain flight by flapping wings like birds. [Figure 1-1] The dream of human flight continued to capture the imagination of many, but it was not until 1799 when Sir George Cayley, a Baronet in Yorkshire, England, conceived a craft with stationary wings to provide lift, flappers to provide thrust, and a movable tail to provide control. 

Otto Lilienthal was a German pioneer of human flight who became known as the Glider King. [Figure 1-2]  He was the first person to make well-documented, repeated, successful gliding flights beginning in 1891. [Figure 1-3] He followed an experimental approach established earlier by Sir George 

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Cayley. Newspapers and magazines published photographs of Lilienthal gliding, favorably influencing public and scientific opinion about the possibility of flying machines becoming practical. 

By the early 1900s, the famed Wright Brothers were experimenting with gliders and gliding flight in the hills 

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