January 1998, Musée de l’Air et de l’Espace, France

Rummaging around in the museum library, I found another book by Dan Poynter, titled "Hang Gliding" and dating back to 1973. What a find! More than two pages are dedicated to "paragliding", which is described as being very similar to hang gliding. They are illustrated with the same photos as were used in the "Parachute Manual". And here, the inventor of paragliding had a name -David Barish - and was described in the captions as being the promoter of the activity, having made several flights in the ski resorts of the USA. I announced my discovery in the April 1998 issue of Parapente magazine in a story titled "Paragliding was born in the USA." But the editor refused to publish my poor photo - the glider was too ugly! Fellow journalist Jean-Paul Budillon picked up on my lead and sniffed out the contact details of Dan Poynter and David Barish. I bought a plane ticket to New York.