Thursday, November 1, 2001. Section: OUR TOWN. Page: 1D
By Lisa Marshall, for the Camera.
Illustration: Jonathan Castner.

In many ways, Heather McRoberts spent her 14th birthday like any teenager might.

She hung out with a friend, listened to music and looked forward to the newfound freedoms that come with turning a year older.

But Heather's celebration was unique. The "friend" was a Schweizer 232 glider plane. The newfound freedom was the ability to fly it solo. And the music: Tom Petty's "Free Falling," which Heather belted out from behind the controls as she soared — alone — 7,000 feet above the watchful eyes of her parents.

"I just put the (control) stick in between my knees, put my hands behind my head and started singing," recalls Heather, who turned 14, the legal age for flying solo, on June 14. "It was totally exhilarating. You are totally free, you are above everyone else, and you are in control."

At a time when fear of flying is at an all-time high and flights at three Boulder area airports have been grounded due to fears of terrorist attacks, many parents might shudder at the thought of their teenager flying a motorless plane all alone above Boulder. But the young people earning their wings at Mile High Gliding say they are as enthusiastic as ever, and can't wait to get back in the sky. So are their parents.

Heather is one of four 14-year-old girls who took their first solo flight in a glider plane this summer, and one of about 10 Boulder teens who regularly take to the skies above Boulder. Some come from families of fliers. Others got into it with dreams of flying fighter planes or being bush pilots.

The teens nonchalantly describe their hobby as "fun" and "not scary at all." But their parents and instructors see a deeper value in these high-altitude joy rides. Young people are the key to the obscure sport's survival, they say. And the lessons learned behind the controls almost always transcend the confines of the glider plane.

"The kids that go solo when they are 14 turn into adults a lot sooner," says Chris Rollings, who was chief instructor at Mile High Gliding this summer. "They are taking an adult responsibility at a very young age and it washes over them the rest of their lives."

Flying a glider, or sailplane, is much different than operating a power plane.

Because it has no engine, the glider must be towed into the air by a plane with an engine. When the desired elevation — say, 3,000 feet — is reached, the glider pilot pulls a knob and releases the tow rope. The tow plane flies away, and the glider pilot is left largely at the mercy of Mother Nature, riding rising currents of warm air, or thermals, to gain altitude, and maneuvering out of them to descend.

"It's kind of like an invisible tornado that moves you up," explains Heather, standing at a Boulder airfield clad in a gray T-shirt that reads "Women Fly."

A thin, pretty blonde with piercing green eyes and a broad smile full of braces, Heather is a hybrid of typical 14-year-old girl and unstoppable tomboy. She dresses up and goes to school dances, but she also rides motorcycles and plays football. Someday, she wants to earn her commercial pilots license and fly people deep into the Alaska bush.

In a sport where 92 percent of the youth participants are boys, she holds her own.

"She is independent enough to know what she likes to do and has no qualms about pursuing it, even if it is not the status quo," says Janet McRoberts, Heather's mother, who also soloed a glider at age 14. "It's not very often that you see 14-year-old girls out at the airport."

Katie Dougherty, also 14, took her first solo flight Sept. 29. Her goals are equally lofty.

"I want to be a fighter pilot for the Air Force and I thought this would be a good place to start," she says.

John Campbell, an instructor at Mile High Gliding and youth coordinator for the Soaring Society of America, couldn't be happier at the sight of several teenagers hanging around the airfield on a Sunday morning.

Youth participation in gliding has more than doubled in the past decade, after a rapid decline in the 1970s and 1980s. In 1969, as World War II veterans began urging their kids to fly, more than 18 percent of the Soaring Society's members were under the age of 23. By 1991, youth membership had slipped to 3 percent and now it is back up to 5 percent, says Campbell.

That's no accident.

In hopes of luring more young people to the sport, the society supports several youth soaring teams. Mile High Gliding offers flight school scholarships and allows young fliers to trade labor — pushing gliders on to the runway to prepare them for flight — in exchange for lessons.

This too is an opportunity for life lessons, says Campbell: Teens learn hard work and cooperation and gain a sense of camaraderie with their fellow fliers. If they stick with it, that camaraderie never goes away, he says.

"We don't just teach them how to fly here," Campbell says. "We teach them how to be part of a larger enterprise."

For more information, www.milehighgliding.com.