1.
SV & LV Person hang-gliding (2 shots)
0.10

2.
CU & SV Women watch as another man prepares to start hang-gliding (2 shots)
0.15

3.
SV Sign "Reach for the Sky"
0.16

4.
CU Car licence plates from Vermont and Maine (3 shots)
0.19

5.
SV PAN Hang-glider takes off
0.24

6.
SV & LV Hang-gliders in air (3 shots)
0.30

7.
SV Hang-glider stuck in tree
0.34

8.
SV PAN Hang-glider takes off and over brow of hill
0.42

9.
CU Girl watching as hang-glider passes and lands on concrete target (2 shots)
0.53

10.
SV Spectators and photographers watch as two other gliders land around target area (4 shots)
1.07

11.
SV Another glider comes in to land dead on bulls eye
1.14



Initials CL/2313 CL/2329


SPORT: HANG-GLIDING
TELERECORDING

Script is copyright Reuters Limited. All rights reserved

Background: Competitors from all over the United States and Canada descended on the resort town of Stowe, Vermont, on Saturday and Sunday (14 and 15 June) for the twin lures of money and the wide blue yonder.

They were taking part in a hang-gliding championship, chasing prize money of 300-dollars. But the real attraction for the "sky surfers" (as they are sometimes called) is in satisfying Man's age old craving for flight.

The unpowered flights are generally brief as the birdmen hang beneath what are virtually oversized kites, but the thrills are big. There is also the element of danger that enriches all flight.

Competition in the fledgling sport depends on scoring points for duration of the flights and landing precision.

SYNOPSIS: Stowe, Vermont, and hang-gliding competitors from all over the United States and Canada gather to determine the best of the birdmen.

The "sky surfers" -- as they are also sometimes called -- were lured by the promise of a three hundred dollar cash prize and the craving to satisfy Man's age old desire to soar through the heavens like a bird.

The flights are generally short but the thrills are endless and spiced with an element of danger.

The hang-gliders' soaring ambitions sometimes come crashing down.

Basically hang-gliding demands two things -- courage to run down a mountainside and launch yourself into nothing at two-thousand feet, and faith in the winds. The fledgling competitive side of the past-time depends on scoring points for the duration of flight and the precision of the landing.

The gliders themselves are little more than oversized kites.

Tom Pagini from Massachusetts took off the prize money to keep his insurance premiums paid. He nosed-out New York's Shane Connor with local Jim Fellmen third.