End 70s' Alain Dreyer and two friends tried to add power to their hang glider, with accelerator in their mouth, landing and taking off on their feet. They flew in the level Rhone River Delta south east of France. Nobody knew : it was not official...
Not far from there a visual trajectory was mandatory in VFR from Istres to Montpellier, and a C160 was flying there at 150m... But under that path you had a nudists' beach and pilots were happy to follow exactly the path scrutinating on the ground... (Imagine how interested) At some moment one of the pilot scanned the sky a little higher and his surprise was immense seeing a hang glider above him not very far. Immediately he reported by radio "aiirmiss with a hang glider" ! ATC knew that no mountain was there to allow an hang glider to fly at 150m and answered "confirm airmiss with a hang glider"! ...the pilot of the C160 confirmed " airmiss with a hang glider" ! ATC in Istres were sure now they listened well, were the pilots drunk? Impossible to have a hang glider.. And the air miss was confirmed in flight and after landing... In the french air administration, military and civilian were laughing and mocking the pilots looking the nudists and thinking they had seen a hang glider !Two days later Alain Dreyer was going in Paris telling about their flights without knowing that story that he discovered... He confirmed that one of the trio was flying near Ste Marie de la Mer beneath the nudists beach and they were able to climb higher than 150m !
The mystery was resolved... And the winner was Alain Dreyer who has been allowed to fly without specific license and creating the french powered ultralight federation FFPLUM. And shame to the C160 pilots surprised by the hang glider because they were watching the nudists...
