Hang Gliding and Paragliding Volume 44 / Issue 1: January 2014 | Page 26

could do a foot-launch was with a '70s-style Easy Riser/Icarus
hang-tube arrangement in which the pilot hangs from his/her
armpits. This called for some structural innovation. “Unlike
equipment in the '70s that allowed one to put bracing wire everywhere to make things strong and light, we had to support
our pilot without tubes in front of her or any bracing wires.”
Team member Laura Shane recalls the long hours of
building and troubleshooting the design. “There were more
than a few nights spent sleeping at our worksite.“
In the end, the Chicken Whisperer resembled a hang
glider, but it hadn’t started that way. “We set out to build
what is essentially a brand-new rigid wing to meet very
strange rules,” Hazen explains. After taking a normal-ta [Y