Most lifelong passions start modestly. But James Tindle’s journey began on the water, at a ski party, with a single glance at a hang glider in flight. He didn’t know that very moment would alter his work, family and the next 40 years of his life.
Today, that early spark lives on at the Florida Ridge Airsports Park in Clewiston, where people travel from all over the world to experience the thrill of hang gliding. But Tindle’s journey began somewhere much smaller.
“I first did water skiing and I had a boat,” said Tindle.
But it was what he saw at a ski party that changed everything.
“I went to the ski party and the guy had a hang glider there and was flying it. That’s pretty much where I got exposed to it that sparked my interest,” said Tindle.
That spark would carry him further than he had ever pictured.
“I was in my early twenties when I got into this,” Tindle says. “When I was 24, I actually took a lesson, and I decided to buy some equipment and train myself. We would initially pull the glider up like a kite, and we would pull the glider up along the coast.”
In search of a safer and smoother environment, he innovated.
“I then felt like having a softer environment would be better,” said Tindle. “So, I rigged my glider with a pontoon boat and hooked up the same towing system to my boat. It got to a point where we were pulling the glider up 1,000 feet behind the boat.”
It’s this curiosity and drive that eventually took him out of Florida to experience something new. In North Carolina, he experienced Kitty Hawk Kites, where beginners sprint down sand dunes to learn flight.
“A part of that experience was when I went to the Wright Brothers National Memorial on Kill Devil Hill North Carolina and learned all about flight,” said Tindle.
With time, practice and patience, Tindle improved his flying skills in ways he never imagined. He began to pursue something bigger. The glider evolved from a hobby to a challenge, a means of testing his capabilities. He began competing in races where the mountains were higher and the distances longer.
“I competed in Colorado in the nationals,” said Tindle. “While I was not a top contender, I went to so many places, stepped off a mountain and flew for hours in the air.”
For him, the goals were simple: stay up, stay focused and make it to the end.
“It’s a race to goal, you want to stay in the air and you might do 100 miles,” says Tindle.
The altitude provided its own type of thrill.
“You’re usually over 10,000 feet in the air flying with average,” he says. “I think I got to 17,000 one day, and you would just cruise for 1,500 miles, and land somewhere.”
These flights, which could last for three to four hours at a time, were among the most defining experiences of his early career in the sport. They taught him to trust himself and what it meant to devote enough time to a passion.
After taking a break from the sport, life drew him back in through a friend of a friend, and he got into training. Through this training, James learned to think both big and outside of the box.
“So then I got away from it for a while and when I started to get back into it and I had a friend of a friend who took an interest and I took him out and started training with him… we talked about starting a business together,” he says. “So he helped finance me and that’s how I got started in Miami.”
They began operations in 1988, and incorporated in 1989. In 1990, James was running his very own hang gliding business in Coconut Grove.
“We were taking people up tandem. Taking people tandem on the hand glider wasn’t something you did commercially. That didn’t exist.”
So he invented it.
“I designed and put together this whole program to take people up, kind of like parasailing, with my boat and also train them in an environment where if they made a mistake they didn’t get themselves hurt.”
He spent 15 years training beginners on water before moving them to long dirt roads near Lake Okeechobee to learn towing and thermaling on land. He even led groups to Tennessee to teach mountain launches.
“I sponsored people to compete. I felt like everybody that got into hand gliding and really liked it should experience the whole thing.”
As his passion grew, so did his vision.
“I wanted a facility where I could go to, walk in, and everything was ready to go.”
So, he built it. James created The Florida Ridge Airsports Park, which is the only place in Florida where people can learn to hang glide. But, in order to run this business he needed something he swore he didn’t want—his pilot’s license.
While first feeling opposed to the idea of learning to fly ultralight planes, all it took was a little convincing from his instructor with these simple words of wisdom:
“You should do it because you own the flight park.”
By his second weekend of lessons, James was flying solo. Today, he continues to takes students up and has grown to love it even more than hand gliding at times.
Family Found
Some of James’ most memorable experiences are from the early days, before the airplanes and the park, when he taught from his boat.
This is where he met his wife, Gretchen.
“My first date with Gretchen was 2 hours on Boca Raton beach flying over the condo 2 hours in the air. That was my first date with her.”
“And to top it all off, a guy from the Boca Raton News happened to be on the beach, took pictures, and wrote an article and put us in the news.”
They raised their children around flight, camping in parks, spending weekends outside, and flying behind the same boat.
“I got to spend time with my children growing up out there.”
Gretchen stopped flying after having children, but flight remains a part of their family history
Even after over 40 years in the air, James still has plans of expansion and new ideas.
When interviewing him, he let me in on a little secret of what’s to come in his new year goals.
“I’m looking into these little man drones. I’m thinking of maybe getting into that and having a couple of those in the park.”
“It’s something I’m looking into, maybe buying a couple, advertising it, and taking people for rides on it.”
It’s new projects like these that keep James on his toes and excited for something different. While hand gliding is an experience on its own, as people like to say ‘the sky is the limit’ and for James this continues to hold true.
James has flown around the United States, including California, Utah, Colorado, Tennessee, North Carolina, and Georgia. When asked about his favorite, he is unable to pick just one.
“They all have their own little moments. It’s hard to say which is the best one.”
But to him what stands out the most isn’t the places he’s been to but the experiences. James notes that his favorite memories have come from the competitions he’s entered.
“I challenged myself and I had never gone up to 17,000 feet. With all 50 other gliders in the air, it was just amazing.”
He now finds meaning in sharing his same sense of fascination and experience with others.
“Going up and flying over south Florida in the hand glider will be one of the top 10 things they ever do in their life. I can’t tell you how many people come off the glider and say that was the best thing they’ve ever done in their whole life.”
Young flyers especially feel it.
“They would be adamant about it and they would say this is THE bets thing out of everything. And I would say ‘I know’. Thats why I’m in business for 40 years because it makes people happy.”
Adrenaline, adventure, and breaking past fear is something that shows James why what he does will always leave a lasting impact on the people around him.
“A lot of people challenge themselves because they are afraid of different aspects of the sport. I like when people challenge themselves and leave here feeling like they’ve accomplished something exciting.”
When stepping off the glider after soaring through the sky, it’s a sensation like no other. Experiences like these are what keep people coming into his park.
“I get a lot of people coming more than once and they bring friends when they come a second time.”
For James, the sky is more than simply a place to fly, but it’s also where people find themselves. After more than four decades, hang gliding has taught him that what matters most is not the distance traveled in the air, but the courage it takes to get off the ground at all and the quiet yet lasting impact it has on life. In this way, each flight, first lesson, and obstacle overcome is its own form of altitude.
He discovered not only a sport, but also a way of life where he started a business, trained thousands of people to fly, raised a family beside planes and tow lines, and established a place where anyone can soar into the Florida skies.
