Austrian Manfred Ruhmer has again set a world record in freeflight. For years, he was the unbeatable world champion in hang-gliding cross-country competitions (shortest time to goal, often in excess of 100 miles per round, 4-6 daily rounds in a row). Since he thoroughly and indisputably dominated and conquered that world, he turned his attentions a couple of years ago to foot-launched light sailplanes. He flies a Swift Light, a lighter design variation of the Swift, designed by Steve Morris, a hang-glider pilot and aeronautical engineer right here in the Bay Area whom I run into from time-to-time. 483.1 miles, from morning launch at Zapata, TX to an evening landing at Lovington, NM. This breaks Robin Hamilton's record of 425 miles, set from Zapata last year. His only power was the thermal-generating power of the sun, and in fact, where normally they only decide to go if they've got a decent tail wind, Manfred needed to leave in a couple of days, so it was make or break and he flew the distance with a significant cross-wind component. Noteworthy is that Manfred also holds the flex-wing hang-glider world record of 432 miles, which he set from Zapata in 2001 and...