Rik's Profile

Thanks for visiting Rik's profile page.

Rik is the owner operator of Wisconsin Hang Gliding L.L.C.
He has been flying hang gliders for 3 decades. Rik currently holds, an advanced hang glider rating, tandem hang gliding instructor ratings, foot launch instructor and more. Not to mention Rik is a rated tug pilot which is a unique rating, essential to towing hang gliders aloft here in the midwest.

Please read Rik's story below, which outlines his past in flying.

I have pretty much been fascinated with aviation since I was a toddler. I remember shopping with my parents, back when I was three years old, I took a hand full of small plastic airplane models and pocketed them. They were later found in my pants that evening. It was pretty hard to convince my parents that i just found them outside somewhere seeing we lived out in the country on a farm.
In my youth I had never passed up a chance to stop by an airport, remote control airplane base, etc. Most of my youth I lived just a couple of miles from a small grass airstrip that serviced local airplanes. There was also a river parellel to the grass strip that sea planes used to fly out of a few times a day on weekends. I used to spend countless hours waiting for the infrequent flight coming from there.

Accross the road from where i lived was a huge public field that I used to fly those big diamond shape kites. My dad taught me how to make and fly them. Over time the kites I built just got bigger and bigger. Eventually the kite line was almost light rope.
Tail on the ground the kites were over my head by far when I stood them up. I used to get them so high. I remember using up to 800 feet of line one time! When the kites got that big I usually did not get them back. I was happy if I could get most of my line retrieved after a long afternoon flight. I enjoyed tieing them to the fence when I went in for lunch. I would pretty much leave them there for the day and wait till they either broke or the wind died and they ended up in a tree at the edge of the river.
I swore I would start building kites large enough to take up a person someday.

But then one day as I was watching tv I saw hang gliding. That's it!! That's what I wanted to do. From there it was just a matter of time till I had the opportunity and the money to begin. I was 18 years old when I started and have been flying hang gliders ever since. Fortuantely I grew up living in the mountains. At that time the mountains were the only places hang gliders were flown.
Eventually I did get my sport aircraft license and several years ago I also achieved my pilots license with instrument rating.