Human flight — unpowered soaring under a hang glider or similar wing — is among the most widely practiced recreations in the gyrealms, and is generally regarded as the sport the habitats were made for. Two features of a rotating habitat make it so: gravity falls to nothing at the axis, so a climbing pilot is rewarded rather than limited, and the atmospheric circulation is regular enough that the lift is in the same place every day.

Soaring the cells#

Flight technique is organized around the six circulation cells. A pilot climbs in the updraft at a cell’s eastern edge, works the rising air to gain as much altitude as possible, and then crosses the transition zone into the next cell, descending through its downdrafts until reaching the following updraft. The practice is called surfing the cell.

The crossing is the skill. A transition zone may be smooth or may carry severe wind shear, and a pilot who enters one without sufficient altitude in hand will not reach the next lift. Shear strong enough to strip lift entirely will tumble a glider head over heels, and because a wing under zero load has no stability, recovery consists of nudging clear of the shear rather than flying out of it. Height loss of several hundred meters in a few seconds is routine in a bad crossing.

Pilots read the boundary by turbulence, turning slightly away as it builds and back again as it subsides, holding the edge of the cell by feel.

Navigators and displays#

Standard equipment includes a navigator — an advisory system that maps the surrounding airflow and calls hazards aloud — and a wind display that renders the currents visually.

Serious pilots turn both off. The consensus is that a navigator showing the currents removes the challenge entirely, reducing the flight to following instructions. Warnings are frequently ignored on principle, which accounts for a substantial share of the injury statistics.

Terrain#

The southern end of Coriopolis, with its ravines and mountainous slopes, is the premier flying country in the habitat. Ridge lift off the southern cliffs supplements the cell circulation, and a pilot who has lost altitude in a bad crossing will tack back to a ridge to recover it before attempting the transition again. Lizard Ridge is the best known of these.

Related low-gravity and zero-gravity recreations concentrated near the axis include gymnastics, diving, and corball.