10 Things Parents Will Love To Do With Their Kids on the Outer Banks

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Fly a hang glider – Soar over the birthplace of flight on the largest sand dune on the East Coast. Try out dune hang gliding, take a tandem flight and get a one-of-a-kind view of the Outer Banks, or take a few lessons in a week to get your pilot’s license and fly a glider on your own!

Surf on the beach – Learn to shred with the locals. Group lessons are available for the whole family, and there are summer camps for the kids.

Ride on a SUP board or kayak – We’ve got tours of private reserves in the Outer Banks only accessible with our guides! If you’re looking for your own adventure for the day or week – rentals are available, too. If you want to try something new, we’ve got nighttime light-up SUP (stand-up paddleboard) rentals available at our Waves Village location.

Sandboard down Jockey’s Ridge – Like sledding on sand, this activity is perfect on a dry day, and unique to the landscape of the Outer Banks.

Try a new hobby – When you leave Jockey’s Ridge, head across the street to Jockey’s Ridge Crossing. Lots of local shops have plenty of activities for the family, including toy demonstrations at Kitty Hawk Kites, Life on a Sandbar, ice cream at Scoops, Tiki Toss at Kitty Hawk Surf Company & more. There are Kids Days on weekdays and Sunset Festival activities on the lawn in the summertime. Check out our events page for more activities at Jockey’s Ridge Crossing to see what’s happening during your visit.

Mix up your regular dining spots – You should dine out at new spots each time you visit. As a destination location, we have lots of amazing cuisine constantly coming into the area. Chefs cycle between restaurants, and you might find your favorite dish is made best by a restaurant you would least expect… so be sure to ask the locals for a recommendation.

Swim with the sharks – … or at least watch. The NC Aquarium on Roanoke Island offers a unique view of the ecosystem. You can touch the stingrays, see an alligator, river otters, and sea turtle conservation efforts at the Sea Turtle Assistance and Rehabilitation (STAR) Center. Manteo also offers Jumpmasters for the kids & a quaint downtown with a boardwalk, park, shopping & events, including First Fridays at the beginning of each month.

Ride or fly a shark – If you didn’t get close enough to the sharks, you can ride Stanley the mechanical shark at Nags Head’s Kitty Hawk Surf Company, or fly a shark kite from Kitty Hawk Kites.

Dowdy Park – Near Jockey’s Ridge and the YMCA, this new park built on the land where Dowdy’s Amusement park used to be (long-time visitors of the Outer Banks will remember this spot…) is now a popular children’s park many people frequent, with a monthly local farmer’s market + more.

Whalebone Park – Conveniently located between Jennette’s Pier and the Tanger Outlets, this new park is popular too.

Find a local craft/craftsperson – We’ve got lots of talented local artisans on the beach. Support local business & ask a local business owner how to connect with local artists. OBX Art Studio (which used to be called Glazin’ Go Nuts) has pottery painting for kids at Front Porch Cafe at Milepost 6 & Deja New in the Dunes Shops at Milepost 4 has art workshops for adults and kids, to name a couple.

In summary, ask a local! The Outer Banks has lots of unique experiences to offer.

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A First Flight Story

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SUBMITTED BY: Sara Weaver

hang gliding launch

My name is Sara, and I’m a competitive hang glider pilot. I’ve been obsessed with free flight since my first lessons in 2013, and suspect that I’ll always feel more comfortable 5000 feet above the ground than with 2 feet planted firmly below.

It wasn’t always like this though. I am not like most other pilots. Sometimes their story of first flight was rooted in family history. They’ve known airplanes or gliders as long as they’ve been alive. For others, flying was the super power they dreamed of as a kid. I hear story after story of now-hang glider pilots jumping from picnic tables with an umbrella opened wide above their heads, wishing it would keep them aloft. I bet the Wright brothers felt that way when they were little.

I was nothing like that though. When I was a kid, I was a rug rat, a dirt explorer, a tree climber. I roamed the woods barefoot and scratched away at poison ivy. My family had never been on a plane. Once, we went to an airshow and I sat in the underbelly of an aircraft that transported cargo and troops. The wing-walkers were my favorite.

It wasn’t until a friend from high school called me in April 2013 during my freshman year of college that flight shoved its way into my life and changed everything about me. He told me about Kitty Hawk Kites, a hang gliding school on the coast of North Carolina. They would teach me how to fly and they would teach me how to teach others how to fly if I worked for them for the summer.

I was busy looking for my first internships in the environmental field at the time, and initially wasn’t interested. I wasn’t even certain what hang gliding was until I looked it up on the internet. But I kept thinking about it and I started losing sleep. Maybe it was the idea that I’d get to live within steps of the ocean, or that I’d feel really cool telling people that yeah, I flew hang gliders, and what did you do with your summer? I submitted my application, interviewed, and got the job. I was 19 years old.

Flashforward to my first flight in May 2013. I was standing atop a 40 foot sand dune in Jockey’s Ridge State Park, wedged between the Atlantic Ocean and the Albemarle Sound, wearing a weighty canvas chest harness and clipped into a blue and white glider called an Eaglet. Needless to say, I was a bit overwhelmed.

Mike Pattishall was my instructor. Over the years I’d get to know him as Too Tall, because that’s what he was. Like me, he was a rock climber. Unlike me, he was not attached like a caterpillar to butterfly wings it wasn’t sure it was ready for.

For as overwhelming as this experience was, I felt mostly prepared for the next steps. I’d spent an hour in ground school that morning, learning a brief history of flight, the basic mechanisms of a hang glider and how to fly one safely. The team I would one day be a part of was knowledgeable, energetic and kind. They helped me into my harness and helmet and we walked out to the dunes together. None of us understood that because of this lesson, one day I’d be traveling the world as a competition pilot desperate for wings and airtime.

Mike held the glider and had me simulate a left turn, a right turn, and a flare for landing while squirming in the sand facing into the wind. We did our final checks together and I held onto the base tube of the glider as I stood up facing southeast toward the Atlantic. I knew vaguely what would happen next; I’d walk, jog, run and suddenly be flying before returning to the sand below the dune after all of 5 seconds. Mike would run alongside me the entire time and coach me through each part of the flight.

And then it actually happened. I yelled “CLEAR” and ran until my feet weren’t touching the ground anymore, and when Mike yelled, “FLARE!” I pushed the bar high above my head and softly plopped back onto planet earth. It was that fast.

We repeated this flight 4 more times and with each repetition, I gained more awareness for exactly what was happening. I didn’t land on my feet every time, but it didn’t hurt, it wasn’t scary, and Mike’s coaching and confidence meant I was excited every time I hooked back into the glider.

I’ve launched and landed hang gliders hundreds of times since this moment, but there are very few flights I remember as thoroughly as my first. I think hang gliding can be scary for some people. There’s this idea that everyone that flies hang gliders is an adrenaline junky, but that couldn’t be further from the truth. Hang gliding is safe with proper instruction, and being at altitude is easily the most peaceful experience of my life.

I think I was the last person on the planet who would try hang gliding. Why would I? I’d never been in a plane and I’d never dreamed of flight, so what was the point? But stepping out of my comfort zone and off the dune would be one of the best moments of my life, and I hope everyone reading this gets the chance to try. Who knows, maybe one day I’ll be racing you in the sky…

How Hang Gliding Mirrors Life

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Henson's Gap

Launching Henson’s Gap, April 2017.
Photo by Dave Aldrich

SUBMITTED BY: SARA WEAVER

 

As my second year on the hang gliding competition circuit ends, I find myself constantly reflecting on how far I’ve come in the last two years. In the middle of this introspection I keep circling around to the same silly comparison: life is a lot like a hang glider race, and in more ways than just the cheesy ‘highs and lows’ experiences.

Distractions – AKA Focus Vampires

While I’m racing, I find it incredibly easy to get distracted. There’s so much to think about – how your altitude is fluctuating, where the other pilots are, if the air is changing along course line, whether my gear is perfectly adjusted or if I’m flying at the best speed for the situation… it becomes difficult to parse through the excess and focus on what’s actually necessary. After years of experience the pros seem to do this effortlessly, digesting each snippet of external information and adjusting accordingly.

For me, every distraction takes away from the task at hand. I could always be turning more efficiently in a thermal or more attentive to my best gliding speed. Instead, I let other pilots or my own thoughts distract me from the basics. Anyone can fly a hang glider, but it takes an immense amount of experience, preparation and focus to race one well. My goal will always be to maintain perfect focus each time I have the privilege to touch the sky.

Big Spring Texas

A gorgeous sunset flight over Big Spring, Texas.
Photo by Dave Aldrich.

Do I have the same goal in real life? To focus on exactly what’s in front of me – no distractions and a constant drive to do well… to do perfectly? As I write this, I find myself listening to my rumbling air conditioner, tying and retying my ponytail, walking to my kitchen only to return empty-handed, spinning half circles in my desk chair. If I could limit my distraction, this article could be written in minutes. If life is like a hang glider race, and I want to do well, then that means learning to focus intently on the things directly in front of my face – no more, no less.

They Chose the Better Line

Raise your hand if you’ve been on a long glide sinking like a rock, trailing just behind another pilot whose altitude hasn’t seemed to diminish whatsoever. Now, raise your other hand if you weren’t happy about it. I’d rather be the other pilot, I’d rather be flying the better line.

But too many times to count when I wasn’t that successful pilot, I found myself at goal while they were packing up their gear kilometers away. And I’ve often come up short after a great run too. So what’s the point in comparing yourself to others? A win is always a lucky sandwiching of our own ability to somehow avoid decking it while other pilots don’t, and it’s the result of each pilot’s unique experiences that lead to a day win. There is no perfect combination of experiences that guarantee success, so playing the comparison game is useless.

Santa Cruz Flats Race

Lining up for my birthday flight at the Santa Cruz Flats Race in September 2018.
Photo by Kendrick Stallard.

On solid ground we see the same thing. Comparing ourselves to others helps us to imagine what achieving our own goals would feel like. But we forget the work the other person put in to get where they are, and picture ourselves succeeding effortlessly. It’s not effortless and it never will be.

Wishing you made the same decisions and took the same actions as someone else, so you could enjoy the same success is completely devaluing your personal journey to achievement. There’s no problem with finding inspiration in another’s story, but we will never ever have the chance to write our own walking in footprints laid before us. So even if they chose a better line, I promise myself to fly my own course and value each bit of lift I receive along the way.

Failure and Success are Inevitable

At the top of your game, your flights will never always be good. And on the opposite side of the same coin, your flights will never always be bad. Taking wins and losses in stride results in one thing only – learning. During every good flight, I learn how to make good decisions. During a flight that didn’t live up to expectations, I learn what choices I should have made and try to apply those lessons to future flying.

Walking through life, you pretty quickly figure out the same thing. Failures just… happen. It all depends on how you react to those failures. For me, whenever something doesn’t turn out perfectly, I take note and mentally throw the failure behind me. I try not to dwell on it and move forward as quickly as possible, choosing a new route and learning from my mistakes. I’m not perfect at it, but here’s to always learning and getting better.

Quest Air Nationals 2018

Goal at Quest Air Nationals in April 2018!
Photo by Dave Aldrich.

I don’t pretend to know all the answers. I’m okay at life and okay at flying, but I love both with all my heart. In each, I try to minimize distraction and avoid comparing myself to others who have different experiences than I do. I fail often, succeed sometimes and attempt to learn from it all. And yeah, life is like a box of chocolates… but my life is much more like one continuous hang glider flight.

Dave’s Journey to His Hang 1

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SUBMITTED BY: ELISE MARSHALL

The Outer Banks have always been special to me and my family. I vacationed there as a child and, when Dave and I took our first vacation together, it is where I wanted to bring him. We became engaged at the Wright Memorial and we were married in Kill Devil Hills. We have a strong connection to the history here, both of us being Air Force. Dave served on active duty as a weapons system engineer and flew on the Joint Stars for eight years. I am currently serving in the Air Force Reserve as a flight medicine physician and I routinely fly with my C130 squadron. Aviation is in our bones.

After Dave left the military he became a private pilot and received a degree in air traffic control. He loved to fly and talked about it constantly. He considered becoming a flight instructor but, because of the demands of my civilian and military medical careers, he agreed to take on a more supportive role at home.  I was taught to fly a small airplane as part of my military medical training and I’m encouraged to fly with my squadron as often as possible. I found myself happily chasing my bliss- flying, practicing medicine, living a happy life with the love of my life… but Dave was stuck on the ground. Though Dave never made me feel guilty that I was able to fly, I knew he missed seeing the world from the air. It became my mission to give my husband back his wings.

During several vacations to the Outer Banks over the last seven years, Dave and I had taken hang gliding lessons together from the instructors at Kitty Hawk Kites. Dave took to hang gliding instantly and often remarked that it was the most intimate way to experience flight. He had a natural feel for the glider and would often spend hours after the lesson talking to the instructors about glider build and flight mechanics. Instructors were always happy to spend the time with him and encouraged him to come back, fly more, and consider pursuing the sport.

 

Early this past spring, I enlisted the help of Bruce Weaver at Kitty Hawk Kites and explained that I wanted to surprise my husband with a hang glider of his own and his Hang One training for his birthday. Bruce and his team were incredible. 27+ emails back and forth, countless phone calls and texts- everyone worked together to make my dream a reality. I was guided through every decision about Dave’s hang glider, from color choices to wheel options, and the process was effortless. No question was too small and no detail was ever overlooked. The team at Kitty Hawk Kites was every bit as excited as I was to see Dave’s face when he was surprised with his custom Wills Wing Falcon 4.

I brought Dave to the beach the third week in September. He had known about the vacation, but he had no idea why we were really coming. I had managed to keep his hang glider a secret for four months. On the first day of our beach vacation, I brought Dave to Kitty Hawk Kites “just to look around” as we so often did on our trips. Bruce and his team had made sure that Dave’s glider was set up outside the store and Dave noticed it as soon as we pulled in to the parking lot. I mentioned that I would love to get a picture of him and asked if he’d stand in front of the “cool new” hang glider. Once he was in position, I told Dave that the glider was actually his. I’ll never forget the look on his face- it was pure ecstatic shock.

wills wing glider

Photo by Elise Marshall

Within minutes, Bruce had run outside to meet Dave and talk to him about his glider. He made sure that Dave got a chance to ask every excited question that popped into his mind. Luke and many others from the store came to congratulate Dave and welcome him to the hang gliding community. There was an incredible outpouring of joy from everyone we met; it was easy to see how excited the team at Kitty Hawk Kites was to be able to share their love of the sport. That day and those first moments that Dave was with his glider were absolutely magical.

The rest of the week on the Banks found Dave working with the incredible instructors at the flight school. JB, Wolf, and Bruce spent hours of one on one instruction time with Dave teaching him to fly again on the school’s training gliders. Dave was in heaven and every minute that wasn’t spent flying was spent talking about flying. I was welcomed and included by the instructors as we happily chased Dave up and down the dunes. In celebration, after Dave had passed his Hang One, Bruce helped him unpack his new glider and they carried it to the top of the tallest dune. When I watched Dave take off with his own glider for the first time in this place that has meant so much to us, I knew that a piece of his heart had been returned to him. He was an aviator again.

 

Returning my husband to the sky took a tremendous amount of work from so many people. Words can’t express my gratitude to Bruce, JB, Wolf, and the rest of the team at Kitty Hawk Kites.

 

Fly! Fly! Fly!

All the best,

Elise and Dave Marshall

How Learning to Fly at Kitty Hawk Kites Has Made Me into a Better Competition Pilot

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SUBMITTED BY: SARA WEAVER

In 2013, I began my first summer as a hang gliding instructor at Kitty Hawk Kites. My fellow instructors pushed me to become the best pilot and best instructor I could be, which can sometimes be tough during the hot days of an Outer Banks summer. The three seasons I spent on those sand dunes would forever shape me as a pilot, and I continue to bring the lessons I learned on Jockey’s Ridge with me as I navigate the world of competition hang gliding five years later.

Why Kitty Hawk Kites is Different

Kitty Hawk Kites Hang Gliding School is unique; there’s no other way to say it. With programs specifically designed to build better pilots, it’s easy to excel when you’re dedicated to the sport. The instructors at Kitty Hawk Kites have one goal: to get a person flying happily, confidently and safely at all costs. This was the mentality I took with me every day I was out on the dunes. I just wanted my students to experience the joy of flight without constraint.

Instructors

A breathtaking sunset flight during Big Spring Nationals 2018.
Pilot: Sara Weaver. Photo: Dave Aldrich.

Besides what I taught my students, I was trying to absorb everything I could from my fellow instructors. They took me from someone who had never even dreamed of flying (a rarity in this sport) to someone with the skills and desire to make it my lifestyle. Kitty Hawk Kites instructors have years of experience and I wanted to learn every tip and trick and tidbit of knowledge they had.

They taught me the easiest way to carry a glider (important when you’re carrying them long distances and trying to save energy), all the technical information I would need to pass my written certification tests, and how to fly safely and efficiently. Most importantly, they instilled in me the idea that being stoked is everything. Having positive energy and psyche to carry me through the hardest parts of both instructing and competition flying became the most valuable lesson I’d learn out on the dunes.

Variety

There are other technical benefits to learning to hang glide at Kitty Hawk Kites. First of all, because we fly from a sand dune I had the ability to learn in all different conditions: light to strong winds and wind direction from any which way. Such variety leads to a well-rounded pilot! Additionally, as a student at KHK I started on the easiest wing in the world, called an Eaglet. Eaglets are by far the most accessible introductory wing, but they’re not typically offered at other mountain sites. And once I was comfortable on an Eaglet, Kitty Hawk Kites provided other hang gliders perfect for new pilots – like the Wills Wing Alphas and Falcons. Every time I got to fly in a new set of conditions and on new hang gliders, I filed away a lesson that would resurface years later in my flying career.

Flying Sites

Kitty Hawk Kites is also incredibly unique in the astounding variety of flying sites I was able to experience early in my adventure as a hang gliding pilot. Not only did I get to learn strong foot launching skills at Jockey’s Ridge, I was able to fly tandem at altitude with more experienced instructors just down the road. At Kitty Hawk Kites’ tandem hang gliding site on the Outer Banks, I learned how to tow behind an ultralight aircraft and experience high altitude flight. And once my dune training was complete and I had earned my Hang 1, Kitty Hawk Kites sent me and other new instructors to Morningside Flight Park in New Hampshire to earn our Hang 2 and learn how to fly in the mountains! No other flight school in the world can offer such variety, from to sand dunes, to altitude, to mountains – and I got to experience all three at the very beginning of my journey as a pilot!

Ground Handling

Ground handling is a cornerstone skill in the sport of hang gliding. Hang gliders are easy to fly, but they’re harder to carry – every gust of wind threatens to steal the glider from your hands. It’s important to know how to control the glider, even when you’re not flying. There’s nothing worse than an expensive glider tumbling away in the wind. Thankfully with the training I received at Kitty Hawk Kites, I have the skills to prevent this from happening!

Kitty Hawk Kites Hang Gliding School puts more focus on ground handling than any other site I’ve experienced. Because of the consistent and sometimes strong sea breeze blowing in from the Atlantic, instructors and students are constantly forced to manage the hang glider while they’re on the ground before launch and after landing. Gliders can be cumbersome if you’re not used to it, but because of the specific ground handling training I received at KHK I never really worry about it.

Take this for example. In August 2018 while I was competing at the Big Spring Nationals in Texas, I had my hang glider set up inside a hangar near the runway. When it came time to launch, me and several other pilots needed to move our gliders from the hangar to the launch line. It was a mess! Several pilots struggled to ground handle their gliders confidently to the launch line, and their slow progression caused other pilots behind them to get caught in the wind rotor and disrupted everyone’s progress to the launch line. Later on during the comp, I landed in the same conditions – and because of the ground handling skills I learned at Kitty Hawk Kites, I was easily able to carry my glider back to a safe location. Ground handling was stressed from day 1 at Kitty Hawk Kites, and I’m happy to say I’m constantly using what I learned there to make me into a better competition pilot.

Sara Weaver Kitty Hawk Kites Big Spring

Sara Weaver and Dave Aldrich after landing at goal for task 1 of the 2018 Big Spring Nationals.
Photo: Kendrick Stallard.

Strength

If there’s one thing learning and instructing at Kitty Hawk will make you, it’s strong. Repeatedly walking up sand dunes with a hang glider on your shoulders in 90 degree heat is no joke. During those three summers I was teaching at Kitty Hawk Kites, I learned just how strong I can be. I’ve got a smaller frame, so sometimes I’d need to use every tip, trick and plain brute strength I had to get through a day of teaching.

Learning my strength at KHK has translated to every single day of competition flying. From loading and unloading the glider from the top of my car’s roof rack, to ground handling my glider in rough conditions, from setting up, breaking down and carrying my glider in 100 degree weather two weeks ago in Big Spring, strength was KEY. Without those challenging summers on Jockey’s Ridge, I may never have learned what exactly my limitations are… and just how strong I can be.

Keeping a Level Head

This one goes hand in hand with strength. In hang gliding competition, mentality is everything. You’re putting a lot of stress on your body by flying in a prone position for hours, ground handling and carrying the glider and basically just working plain hard for an entire week. As your body gets more and more tired, it’s so easy for your brain to follow suit. And once you lose your focus, it’s hard to compete well.

At Kitty Hawk Kites, I learned day after day that mentality drives a successful lesson. When I was stoked, my students were stoked. When I wasn’t performing at my best, my students noticed. That’s why with every lesson, I brought my A-game – and sometimes, that meant pulling every string in my brain to convince myself that I wasn’t sore and tired.

That practice makes an appearance every day in a competition. When I wake up early and my shoulders are on fire, or when I’ve wrestled my glider from the hangar to the launch line, or when I land in the middle of the field and have to haul my 54 pound hang glider and 25 pound harness an eighth of a mile to get out, I go back to the brain game at Kitty Hawk Kites. Every time something is hard, I smile and push past it, because as long as I can be happy and just enjoy the simple pleasure of flight, all the hard work it so worth it.

Tenacity

It’s funny how each of these skills build on each other. I feel like my foundation in the sport of hang gliding was built on these principles at Kitty Hawk Kites. As an instructor, we were encouraged to get at it, day in and day out. I was taught to try hard… not just in my training as a pilot but as someone responsible for making student’s lifelong dreams of flight become reality. Cheesy? Yes. But indelibly true.

Out on the dunes, there was a strong mentality of “No Instructor Left Behind.” We began an ended every lesson together. If someone was having a slower day, you could count on another instructor stepping in and helping. Likewise, if conditions were strong as they often were, we’d knock out those tough lessons in pairs – all to ensure our students were flying safely and having the best day of their life.

That insatiable drive to do well, not just by ourselves, but by our students and fellow instructors follows me every single day on the competition circuit. Flying with tenacity and tenaciously supporting other pilots is something I strive for constantly – and it’s one of the most valuable lessons I’ve taken with me from the dunes.

Support System / Resources

Even today, years after I’ve left the dunes to follow other pursuits, Kitty Hawk Kites continues to support my passion of flying. Unsurprisingly, Kitty Hawk Kites’s dedication to their students and instructors is apparent from day one. Our sport is small, and it is Kitty Hawk Kites’s mission to “Teach the World to Fly”. It follows that each student receives VIP treatment out on the dunes, and as they continue to progress, KHK offers instruction at every level.

Kitty Hawk Kites provided all my foundational training, from ground handling on the dunes, to my Hang 1 and 2 certifications, to my initial aerotow training and my foot launch sign off. At every turn, the instructors that make Kitty Hawk Kites the best place on earth to fly built me into the pilot I am today. Even now I turn to the people I’ve met at Kitty Hawk Kites when I’m developing a new skill or preparing for the next competition.

Today, as I navigate the complex and challenging world of competitive hang gliding, I am consistently reminded of what Kitty Hawk Kites has provided in the way of guidance, instruction and support to help me succeed. It’s foolish to say this limited list of the ways KHK has molded me is definitive, but it’s a start. No matter where I wander in this eccentric hang gliding world, the lessons I’ve learned as a pilot and instructor at Kitty Hawk Kites will follow me, lift me up and help me succeed.