History of Hang Gliding and Paragliding
in the Royal Navy

The Early Years

Royal Navy personnel have been interested in flying for many years. Even before the Wright Brothers’ first flight in 1903 sailors have shown an interest in and flown all sorts of aircraft from balloons, gliders and man lifting kites. It is this early interest in recreational flying that represents the foundations of the Fleet Air Arm.

Man lifting kites have been around for centuries and in 1903 they were the latest technology for the Royal Navy. A man named Vivian Cody was trying to sell this new technology to the Navy. On Woolwich Common on the 12 and 13 March 1903, Cody displayed his eight foot black silk kite and his seventeen-foot calico man lifter to some representatives of the British Admiralty. Captain Reginald Tupper, who was the Assistant Director of Naval Ordnance at the time, reported that: 'This is quite the best kind of kite I have seen, and I have every reason to think it will be of use for supporting an aerial wire for Weapon Targeting purposes, and that it can be easily handled and flown from the deck of a ship or even small craft. I have no hesitation in recommending a trial'.
Testing the man lifting kite at Whale Island
Over the next five years Cody and his team completed trials of man lifting kites and how they could be used within the Royal Navy. The trials were conducted ashore and at sea but unfortunately the Royal Navy's interest in kites was short lived due to the improvements in gun control methods and the introduction of powered aircraft.

You could, therefore argue that hang gliding and paragliding have a part to play in the fleet air arms foundations because there is a very close relationship between a ‘man lifting kite’ and a hang/paraglider. If only they gave man lifting kites another chance. We may have even had a hang glider carrier!

1970-2000

Seventy years later man lifting kites came onto the scene again thanks to a Royal Navy Officer by the name of Mike Collis. Commander Collis is most certainly the forefather of the Royal Navy Hang Gliding and Paragliding Association. He had heard about a flying machine called a bamboo butterfly that allowed one to float down a steep sided hill. When he was on course at HMS COLLINGWOOD in 1973 he built a scale model. The results of this experiment were very useful. The model was highly unstable due to the keel being too short thus a full size version was sidelined but his interest in hang gliding was not.

The first club was called HMS FYFE Hang Gliding Club. Commander Mike Collis formed the club in 1975 when he was appointed to HMS FYFE. Mike remembers assembling the club’s first Hang Glider from a kit set bought from a UK distributor and in true Naval style it was assembled at sea. The sail was sewn by Mike and the Commanding Officer of HMS FYFE. The members of our first club were composed from any of the ships company who expressed interested in exploring the idea of free flight.

A deployment to the ships namesake, Fyfe, saw the wardroom involved in a run ashore to a local hill next to a cliff. Everyone had a go at flying the hang glider and somehow no one got hurt. Even though Mike recalls having great difficulty trying to persuade the CO not to take off down wind. The run ashore culminated in Mike jumping off the cliff much to the amusement of the ship’s company.

The second HG Club was called Dolphin Hang Gliding Club, which was formed when Mike Collis was appointed to his new job at the Submarine School in Gosport. This new club flew on a regular basis at Butser Hill, the highest point on the South Downs, and was a great location to train Navy members.

The club competed in flying competitions against the local civilian hang gliding club, Sky Surfers. These early competitions were not like competitions of today. Rarely did flights last longer than a minute, the activity was more a slow parachute like decent than soaring and nobody thought about going Cross Country. In fact Mike reports that it took more than 200 separate flights before he logged a single flight longer than a minute!

Mike Collis became the chief hang gliding instructor for the Royal Navy after spending one day at a Hang Gliding School. He promoted the sport throughout the Navy and from the Dolphin Hang Gliding Club formed the Royal Navy Hang Gliding Club in 19??. He composed the initial constitution and this format was then used for the Army Hang Gliding club. It wasn’t long before the RAF joined the scene. Soon each service had a Hang Gliding Club and annual competition where members from the other two forces were invited to take part. In 19?? The first formal inter service hang gliding championship was held and each service entered a team to compete against the other two services.

Mike Collis left the Royal Navy and went on to become the paid secretary of the BHGA from 1988-1990 before it amalgamated to become the BHPA. After his departure the club continued to develop as hang gliding also develop and became a recognised and popular sport around Britain.

The formation of the Joint Service Hang Gliding Centre was established shortly after the Army Hang Gliding Center was formed in 1981. It was situated in Sennybridge near Breacon and was opened thanks to the hard work of Jim Taggart who was an active hang glider pilot and felt passionate about his sport. He lobbied hard for official recognition within the services and this did not go unrecognised. Jim was awarded the MBE in 1983. This new service facility has been the backbone of the Royal Navy Hang Gliding and Paragliding Association allowing thousands of people to experience hang gliding and paragliding as part of their adventurous training.


JSHPC taken from a hang glider doing the milk run. 		Unfortunately Jim Taggart was killed in an accident soon after he was awarded the MBE in 1983. Without his leadership and enthusiasm the centre suffered. It moved to a temporary home at RAF St Athan and had five different Officers in Charge in quick succession. It wasn’t until April 1986 that stability returned to the centre when John Aldridge took charge of the centre for two years. Under his management the centre moved to where it remains today in Cwt-y-Gollen near Crickhowell.

The 80’s also saw the arrival of two of the most influential pilots in the history of Royal Navy Hang Gliding, Rob Schwab (Schwaby) and Rob Dowdell. As a duo they were feared in the Inter Service Competitions often seen disappearing off into the distance while other pilots plummeted to the bottom of the ridge. They were just as effective on the ground as they were in the air promoting the club within the Royal Navy and implementing new administrative procedures for example amalgamating the paragliding fraternity into the cub and forming the all new Royal Navy Hang Gliding and Paragliding Club in 1996. These two pilots created the club as is stands today, not only making it a strong active flying club but also making it a very sociable one too.

Schwaby taught himself how to fly a hang glider on a Highway Cloud Buster in 1979 before he joined the Royal Navy. He recalls flying at Mere in the early days and being amazed when he witnessed some chap in Wellington boots complete a soaring flight. He joined the Royal Navy’s Fleet Air Arm as a Harrier pilot in 1982 and in 1986 attended his first Inter Service Hang Gliding Championship where he won the Novice Class. He was immediately promoted to the Open class and continued his domination in future competitions going on to become the Open Inter Service Champion 4 times. In 1987, with only a year in the club, he was elected as Chairman of the club after Lt Cdr Gavin Eyre stood down. Schwaby held the position for thirteen years. That same year Schwaby completed his first Cross Country on a Magic 4. He flew 55km as a guest in the UK League. ‘I remember being hovered up to cloud base at 5000ft above Merthyr, there was a Tesco shopping bag in the same thermal as me! I shouted to another pilot what do we do now, but he just flew off downwind. In the end, after a few more thermals, I got to Raglan a total distance of 55km.’
Rob Schwab is crowned Inter Service Champion again.

Rob Dowdell started flying hang gliders in 1984, the same year he joined the Royal Navy as a Helicopter Pilot. He started his flying on a single surface Atlas that he found underneath a stage at Dartmouth College. His first soaring flight on this machine was an epic 3 hour flight that took him 4000ft high underneath a cloud and with no parachute. He completed his first Cross Country four years later during an Inter Service Hang Gliding Championship, a race to goal 2.5km away. To date he hasn’t won the Inter Service Open Hang Gliding Championship, but has been runner up many times and has been instrumental in helping the Royal Navy win the Inter Service Championship many times. In 1990 he became the Secretary of the club and immediately the club got its first newsletter, which became a regular event.

2000-today


The Royal Navy Hang Gliding Team 2000.

In 2000 Rob Dowdell became the Chairman of the club. Since then the club continues to expand and go from strength. The club broke away from the Royal Navy Gliding and Soaring Association and in April 2005 we became an independent association and became: The Royal Navy Hang Gliding and Paragliding Association. We have approximately 50 members and continue to support and encourage them to progress in the sport.



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