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" Read Davin Coburn&amp;#039;s flying blog and listen to him discuss his adventure.  Listen to Davin Coburn adventure as he describes it on the Popular Mechanics Show (podcast).  powered by ODEO Subscribe:   Download MP3.  We&amp;#039;re off the ground early, seven ultralight kite wings climbing from an airstrip outside Tucson, Ariz., and banking into the sunrise. There are no canopies on our aircraft, which are basically just go-karts bolted to hang gliders--with engines in the back. The wind crackles against my chest as John Kemmeries and I climb at nearly 900 ft. per minute. Kemmeries, who is doing the piloting, cuts across cliffs at the mouth of a 1000-ft.-deep canyon and threads a path through the Galiuro Mountains. Ahead of us, nearly always ahead, I can see John McAfee, the software entrepreneur and founder of the Sky Gypsies crew I&amp;#039;m flying with. We skim treetops on the canyon floor and our shadow gains on us. We outrun territorial hawks. The canyon dumps us into the wide-open Aravaipa Valley, which we follow south. At times, we fly so low we could duck under the powerlines. We startle a coyote as its jaws are about to snap shut on a fleeing jackrabbit. And when a fellow Gypsy radios to ask where we are, Kemmeries responds, &amp;quot;A half mile east of you guys. Altitude ... about 6 ft.&amp;quot;  In 3 hours we cover 155 miles and reach our base for the next four days, a private airstrip McAfee has built near Rodeo, N.M. It&amp;#039;s just across the Arizona border and 40 miles from Mexico. Population: about 225--when the Gypsies are in town. I became a pilot last December. My article about the experience, &amp;quot;How I Learned to Fly (In a Week)&amp;quot; (click here to read it), brought a warm response from readers. One e-mail was from McAfee, who invited me to try kite wings--a type of ultralight aircraft--and a new sport called &amp;quot;aerotrekking.&amp;quot;  In the world of aviation, ultralight aircraft occupy something of a renegade realm, and within it McAfee, Kemmeries--a revered 47-year-old ultralight pioneer--and the Sky Gypsies roam a wild and untamed corner. Think of aerotrekking as an airborne cousin of ATVing: Pilots map 50-plus-mile routes through backcountry terrain, then fly below 50 ft. for much of the way. To help pilots from getting in over their heads, aerotrekkers have devised a 1-to-5 difficulty scale. A route rated &amp;quot;1&amp;quot; offers ample space to set down. A &amp;quot;5,&amp;quot; as the Gypsies say, features &amp;quot;no options.&amp;quot;   Legendary ultralight pilot John Kemmeries takes author Davin Coburn (right) through the details of some propellers available for the kite wings. Davin notes that the carbon fiber propeller he&amp;#039;s holding in this shot felt like an anvil.  The sport relies on the ridiculous performance characteristics of the machines. Kite wings are available for anywhere from $15,000 to $70,000, fully loaded with electronics. The Sky Gypsies are loyal to Air Creation models. Typically powered by 80-hp four-cylinder Rotax 912 engines, these vehicles can reach 10,000 ft. and crack triple-digit velocities. Just as important, they can fly safely as slow as 35 mph. As McAfee wrote in his e-mail, &amp;quot;Maneuverability is so refined we can fly hundreds of miles between canyon walls that are less than 100 ft. apart.&amp;quot; For now, the Federal Aviation Administration barely regulates either the hardware or the people who fly it. Most kite wing pilots like it that way. However, ultralights will be brought under stricter FAA control on Feb. 1, 2008. In the run-up to that date, the agency has begun certifying the vehicles, and licensing pilots and examiners. Even with the new rules, kite wings seem likely to remain a zone for pilots with a damn-the-bureaucrats, cowboy mentality.  4am under the desert sky outside Tuscon--the Sky Gyspies plan their route down to Rodeo, NM. The dusty town of Rodeo supports a gunshop, art galleries, and a one-room canned goods store and restaurant where customers eventually just pour their own coffee. McAfee&amp;#039;s private 2300-ft. runway is the area&amp;#039;s largest capital improvement in years. &amp;quot;Almost everyone has come over to visit at some point,&amp;quot; McAfee says. &amp;quot;One week, we probably gave 200 rides--including to one 86-year-old woman who had the time of her life.&amp;quot; He is also building a public greenhouse where locals can grow their own produce. Rodeo can thank computer bugs for all the new infrastructure. It&amp;#039;s been a dozen years since McAfee left the $100 million-a-year antivirus software company, McAfee Inc., that he&amp;#039;d founded in 1987. The 60-year-old has since been a yoga instructor and author, and discovered open-ocean jet skiing. And he&amp;#039;s learned to fly kite wings. Pilots go up year-round in Rodeo--but during the hottest months they fly only early and late in the day. The midday sun superheats the ground and causes sudden updrafts that can lead to dust devils. Glider pilots seek out the thermals to gain altitude. But as the air rushes upward, it creates massive turbulence near the ground--scary conditions for someone flying a kite wing a few feet off the deck.  The morning after we arrive, we take to the air and head west toward a wilderness playground in the 9000-ft. Chiricahua Mountains. Horseshoe Canyon, which lies 11 miles from McAfee&amp;#039;s hangar, runs straight for a mile and a half after we enter it, then splits. Now things get interesting. We bank right and duck into the snaking north fork, which gapes 4000 ft. at the rim, then narrows to a quarter-mile at the floor, 1000 ft. below. Kemmeries, who is my pilot again, grins as he hugs the left wall. We streak past piles of rock that have collapsed into high ledges, supporting trees that seem to swipe at our wingtip. Kemmeries has been flying since age 16 and his exploits are legendary in ultralight circles. He pulls us into 60-degree banks as we follow the folds of the canyon. Every time we straighten out, the roller coaster swings back in the other direction. Kemmeries dives to ratchet up our speed past 70 mph before the tightest curves--in a kite wing, speed equals maneuverability--then gains altitude again before he arcs into the next slaloming turn. After 3 miles, we bank to the right around one final bend. We spiral slowly upward 3000 ft. into the blue to clear the 8000-ft. ridge that separates us from the next canyon. I cinch down my lap belt. Hard. And then Kemmeries pushes us over the top and we dive down the other side. Here, in Cave Creek Canyon, lichen-streaked spires stand 150 ft. away from the cliff, the rock cleaved by millennia of uneven erosion. We shoot these narrow gaps, balancing on a wingtip, then circle around to do it again (and again). We flash through shadow and light until, finally, we turn toward home. Soon, the dust devils will start to swirl. Horseshoe Canyon is just one of at least 50 routes the Sky Gypsies have mapped. With thousands of square miles of uncrowded airspace, this corner of the Southwest is a paradise for kite wings. The group has spent three years exploring the area, and now McAfee is eager to spread the word. He is bankrolling a new flight school, the Southwest Aerotrekking Academy, due to open in Willcox, Ariz., in September. In Rodeo, he has built a second, public runway just a stiff prop wash from the one we&amp;#039;ve been using. There, he plans to open a cafe, motel and service station.  On my last afternoon in Rodeo, I finally get to climb into the front seat. I&amp;#039;m shown to my training vehicle: a 500-pound GTE 912 with an 80-hp Rotax engine and 33-ft.-wide high-performance wings. &amp;quot;This is not a normal training rig,&amp;quot; says Rich Michaels, my instructor and a prot\u00E9g\u00E9 of Kemmeries. In kite wing terms, it&amp;#039;s a muscle-car--demanding and fast. Michaels shrugs: &amp;quot;McAfee has everything extreme.&amp;quot; The main challenge, ironically, is that I&amp;#039;m already a pilot. &amp;quot;Learning this is much easier if somebody hasn&amp;#039;t flown an airplane before,&amp;quot; Michaels says. Airplanes have movable surfaces--ailerons, a rudder and elevators--that are controlled by hardware in the cockpit, but in a kite wing it&amp;#039;s the entire wing that pivots. The vehicle&amp;#039;s body and its passengers dangle below the airfoil, pendulum-style. In a sport plane, I learned to pull back on the stick, or control yoke, to lift the nose. Kite wing pilots push a horizontal control bar forward to pitch up. In a plane, I tipped the stick left to bank left. A kite wing pilot shifts the entire wing out to the side to bank. Want to go left? Push the control bar to the right. I&amp;#039;m ready to try it. Michaels and I taxi out to the end of McAfee&amp;#039;s long runway and throttle up. The wheels kick dust into the air as we speed along the unpaved surface. We hit 55 mph and pop off the ground after a ridiculously short 165 ft.--a third of what a nimble sport plane requires. We fly south and slowly climb 2500 ft. above the desert. Rodeo is visible as a distant white water tower and a few LEGO-size buildings. My task is to simply fly in a straight line above the one, unbending road into town. Initially, though, I wobble all over the sky in what are officially called &amp;quot;pilot-induced oscillations.&amp;quot; But when Michaels tells me simply to let go of the control bar, we settle back into straight and level flight. Then we spend 15 minutes practicing stalls--again, the aircraft tends to correct itself--before heading back. As we approach our airstrip, Michaels cuts the engine so I can practice gliding. It&amp;#039;s something I&amp;#039;ve never had to do in an airplane. First, there&amp;#039;s a dreadful silence. Then I hear the wind buffeting my helmet and face mask, rippling through my shirt. We circle above the runway, descending ever so slowly. Eventually, we&amp;#039;ll have to land. But for now, it&amp;#039;s like a childhood dream of flight. We&amp;#039;ve got plenty of altitude left and I shift the bar to make endless, lazy loops. My wings slicing the sky sound like a blade carving ice. Want to learn more? Visit Southwest Aerotrekking Academy. 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<http://www.popularmechanics.com/flight/how-to/a815/3527011/>