Wisconsin is a Mecca for light sport flying enthusiasts and winged hobbyists of all sorts. According to the documentary Icarus Envy, the first ultra light was built in 1974 by a Milwaukeean, who rigged a motor to a hang glider. Wisconsin filmmaker Bob Leff interviews many owner-builders of trikes, chutes and other oddball flying machines, some of them resembling the contraptions that flew in the immediate aftermath of Kitty Hawk. What’s most compelling are the scenes of open-air flight, gliding slow and so low over farm fields that the pilot can smell the alfalfa and manure and feel the bracing wind against the cockpit.
Icarus Envy is available on DVD for $24 from Video Art Productions, 2217 Goecks Court, Cottage Grove, WI 53527. Bob Leff can contacted at: vapbob@juno.com.
