Lovers of the air enjoy a tandem flight with the Dragon Fly Soaring Club in Webberville, near Lansing.

Uplifting ways to experience a bird’s life … and maybe even change your own.

By Megan Swoyer

For many Michiganders, success comes with “getting away from it all” or “going with the flow” (of wind, that is). 

Scott Lorenz, founder of Westwind Communications in Plymouth, is a perfect example. The marketing and public relations specialist likes nothing better than to soar high off the ground in his hot air balloon, “sailing” through breezes, currents, clouds and sunrays.

“Ballooning is a metaphor for life,” he says. “You can’t control the wind but you can control your altitude, and with that control, you can catch the right wind to take you where you want to go.”

As for inspiring a focused outlook, Lorenz says ballooning provides him with many philosophical opportunities and new perspectives. “You wouldn’t believe what you’re missing right in your backyard,” he says. “The sights, the animals, the birds, the lakes … it’s a lot to take in so you have to be focused on flight. That focus actually clears the mind of everything else that’s not important at the moment.”

Lorenz, whose clients include doctors, bestselling authors, app developers and business entrepreneurs, says he caught the flying bug at a young age.

“As a kid, I used to jump off our roof holding onto an umbrella,” he recalls with a chuckle. “My brother and I were big at building tree houses, too, like 100 feet off the ground.”

The idea to learn how to pilot a balloon began in 1980 when Lorenz co-founded an event in Plymouth called the Mayflower Hotel Hot Air Balloon Festival.

“I had to get everybody from politicians to the media on board with this idea,” he says, “as not many people in the world were really ballooning yet and they had no idea it was so fun.”

On a clear day, you can see forever in Westwind Balloon’s Sun Pirate.

Riding the skies
Lorenz took pilot lessons and received a license to fly for his own benefit the next year, buying a balloon and basket from a friend. Since then, he’s owned three balloons and has developed a balloon-ride business on the side. He named his current balloon the “Sun Pirate,” which goes well with its blue ocean tones and rising-sun graphic.

Rarely do rides in the Sun Pirate cause anxiety for adventure seekers. Walt Menard took a ride last year and found the experience quite enjoyable. “I’m one who doesn’t like looking over railings from high up, or looking down when I’m just a few stories high, so I was a bit leery,” says Menard, owner of the Lotus Arts Gallery in Plymouth. “Once we were off the ground, there was nothing to it — you feel like you’re floating, and not moving fast,” he adds.

“I’d say one in 100 actually has to sit down in the bottom of the basket,” Lorenz explains. “They’re just not prepared for the sensation, and sometimes we brush the tops of trees. We move as fast as the wind — I’m looking for wind speeds about 10 mph or less for a launch.”

Passengers might also have to sit down after a surprise marriage proposal. Lorenz often takes lovebirds into the atmosphere and has witnessed some airborne “I wills.” Recently, a customer arranged to have Lorenz fly a banner behind the balloon with the big question “Will you marry me?”  written on it.

Basically, Lorenz’s operation works like this: First, he launches a helium balloon to see which way the wind is blowing. “Then, we drive to one of our nine different launch sites in the area that give us good scenic views of the countryside and downwind landing spots.“

The balloon is powered by propane, which heats the air and gives it the lift. “The air inside the balloon is hotter than the outside air and that creates the lift,” he explains. Lorenz controls the burner while a ground crew keeps watch on things (the crew also helps launch and land the balloon). Upon landing, Lorenz upholds a longstanding tradition — a glass of champagne for all. “That’s a tradition that started in France among early balloonists,” he says.

Not just for the birds
Like Lorenz, Dr. Tracy Tillman also has been captivated by air and wind since he was a young boy. Model airplanes fascinated Tillman as a child growing up. Those small winged beauties eventually inspired him to build his first hang glider, “which was really a big model airplane of sorts,” he says.

Today, Tillman’s hobby as a hang gliding instructor and club leader at the Dragon Fly Soaring Club in Webberville, near Lansing, allows him to not only enjoy the beauty of flight, but also to introduce his passion for flight to others.

“Hang gliding is flying in its most pure and bird-like form,” says Tillman, who is a retired engineering teacher at Eastern Michigan University and a commercial airplane pilot who’s also developing an electric-powered airplane (he hopes to have that flying sometime this summer).

Tillman’s been hang gliding for the past 40 years and shares his private airfield with the Dragon Fly Soaring Club. His wife, Dr. Lisa Colletti, also is a hang gliding pilot. 
“We’re seeing not only men in this sport, but women, too,” he says. “I’d like to see more women get involved.”

The club has 40 members ranging in age from 18 to an 86-year-old World War II veteran. The U.S. National Hang Gliding Association chose the site of the Dragon Fly Soaring Club as the focal point for the May 28 U.S. National Hang Gliding Day.

For those who want to try hang gliding, this is the place to do it. Here, instructors and members provide tandem discovery flights so that first-timers can go up with an instructor. 

“We take them up about a half mile or higher and we’re pulled behind a very light, slow aircraft and then eventually we’re released,” Tillman says. “Each flight simulates the length of time if we were, say, launching off of a high mountain.” The flight up on tow usually takes about five to 10 minutes, and the glide back down usually lasts about 10 to 15 minutes, explains Tillman, so the total flight is about 15 to 25 minutes, “depending on the weight of the occupants and the buoyancy of the air on that particular day.”

Experienced gliders fly in the middle of the day to catch thermals, which are upward currents of warm air, used by gliders, balloonists and birds to gain height. “In the thermals, they climb to higher altitudes and can stay up for hours, just like a soaring bird.”

Hang gliders fly with a variometer, an instrument that is used almost continuously during flight to inform the pilot of rising or sinking air. “When you want to go up, you go into the air that is going up.”

Trevor Gildersleeve, a software engineer for Cengage Learning in Farmington Hills, knows all about variometers and then some. “As a young child, Superman and Mighty Mouse were my heroes because both could fly,” he says. “Once I realized flying like them was impossible, I thought airplanes were my only option.” Given time and expenses, becoming an airplane pilot was out of the question for Gildersleeve. Then he discovered hang gliding.

“No engine, no seat, no noise. Just me flying with nothing between the earth and me but air,” the Canton resident recalls of his first flight. Since then, he has received training at the Dragon Fly Soaring Club to become an aero tow-rated hang glider pilot. “They run a very safety-oriented club,” he says. “Hang gliding has changed my life. Every morning I wake up and start checking the weather for the next chance to get out and fly.”

Tandem diver at Skydive Tecumseh takes the plunge.

Taking the plunge
Sky diver Franz Gerschwiler’s approach to life is simple: “If you want to be successful, don’t let anything get in your way and don’t be afraid to try something new or something ‘out there,’” says Gerschwiler, owner of Tecumseh-based Skydive Tecumseh. “When people try sky diving — and I know this sounds corny — the experience often changes their life direction.”

For those who want to plunge into 14,000 feet of thin air (certainly, there are a few of you out there),

Gerschwiler, whose business is open from April through October, recommends a tandem dive for the first time. “It’s straightforward and the training is simple,” he says. “You’re ready to go in maybe 40 minutes’ time.”

The tandem dive allows newbies to go down with an instructor, who does all the work while the ride-along enjoys the thrills and scenery. “If you want to be more involved in the process the first time, you can,” explains Gerschwiler, who is originally from England and started skydiving about 12 years ago.

Skydiving, by the way, is never like what you see in the movies where someone jumps and seconds later, one big parachute opens up, he notes. “Skydiving is much more complex than that and involves three stages to deployment, including a small parachute that’s opened first to slow you down because, of course, you’re going really fast when you first jump.”   

Gerschwiler has been enthralled with risk-taking since he was a young boy. “I like to rock climb, mountain bike, the extreme things,” notes the sports enthusiast, who’s tallied more than 2,500 jumps in various spots around the world and enjoys diving during sunset more than any other time of day. His most intriguing jump was in Australia’s outback. “When I landed, I knew I should be looking for venomous snakes.”

Most first-time divers tell Gerschwiler upon landing, “I’ve got to do that again!” That’s no surprise to him. “It’s one thousand times more exhilarating than a roller coaster,” he says, “especially the first time. It can be a life-changing experience. Facing up to something dramatic like that makes no sense to normal human instinct, so you really overcome fear.”