Swiss outfit Ruppert Composite is offering a new level of hang-gliding experience…and expense.
The good ol’ days of strapping on an oversized kite with a bit of leftover seatbelt and jumping off the nearest headland are apparently gone. Now the Archaeopteryx – we have no idea how to say it – gives the ritzy, business-class experience. The plane’s available in three different fuselage configurations: the Standard, where the pilot sits in a fabric sling and gets to experience the full terror of the situation; the Race, which offers a cockpit enclosure and a noticeable improvement in performance and has some luggage space fore and aft; and the Electro, which is the same as the Race, but has an electric motor… so it’s probably not technically a hang glider any more.
Why would anyone need luggage in something like this? Maybe a clean pair of jocks as they plunge to their grisly death, but ‘luggage’?
It does look like supercool fun, and if we weren’t such fraidy cats we’d love to give it a try.
You can purchase your very own Archaeopteryx from Ruppert Composite for just a smidge over $100,000 for the Standard and about $133,500 for the Electro. And you’ll have to get it here from Switzerland, of course.
If you have that kind of cash to splurge we’re guessing you won’t care how comical you look running along with your feet hanging out of the plane like a modern version of Fred Flintstone.