Air Sports

Falling Sky Diving | Scad Diving | Diving | Cliff Jumping | Coasteering | Abseiling | Barrel Jumping | Diving Planes
Bungee Things to jump from | Ways to Jump | Types of Bungee
Gliding and Soaring Hang Gliders | Paragliders | Paragliding (horsedrawn) | Gliders
Flying Powered Parachutes | Ultralights | Air Bicycling | Ornithcoptering
Hovering Pedal-powered Blimp | Human-powered Hovercraft | Personal Helicopter
Transportation Mass Plane (i.e. 747) | Air Taxi | Helicopter | Rockets (Shuttle)
Other Human Catapulting | Fly By Wire | Underwater airplane | Actionflite or Wingwalking (aerobatics on top of aircraft)

Gravity even though it is the weakest of the four fundamental forces can be quite deadly because the Earth is creates a massive gravity well. It is the dream of humanity to resist the pull of gravity, take off the ground and fly like a bird. With our flying machines invented in the early 19th century we can do that now, but not quite like the birds. On Earth we can take off the ground using wings but the flight is at best like an albatross with little manoureurablity, high speeds for takeoff and very low rates of ascent. If we use fixed wings we can duplicate the flight styles of other kinds of birds. Gliding and soaring, a method of flight used by hawks and other large preditory birds are mimiked best with our hang gliders. Hovering, the most expensive version of flying done most often by the extremely maneurourable hummingbirds, requires helicopters or blimps to duplicate. Blimp flight is unique to humanity, no other organism is light enough to float on air. Flying is the most common method of flight and is done by a breathtaking array of aircraft from ultralights all the way up to huge passenger aircraft that seats hundreds of passengers.

Or for gut wrenching excitement we can let gravity pull us at incredible speeds towards the ground with only a bungee cord or a parachute to stop our deadly fall. Stranger methods such as getting shot out of a catapult are described in the other section. On a more practical note aircraft can be used for transportation instead of just recreation and many of these are or may become viable commuting alternatives in the future.

http://www.horton-szar.net/clipart/aircraft.php (Aircraft clipart)