The use of specialised equipment is common to many sports from tennis to car racing, but in no other sport has this equipment been developed to such a degree of sophistication as it has in gliding. Naturally, together with technical progress there has come equally sophisticated piloting techniques, and an understanding of the air which has been, in some areas, ahead of that possessed by acknowledged experts.

The first gliding competition—if it could be called such —was held in 1920, 53 years ago in the period of exhaustion following the First World War. It consisted of a few dedicated enthusiasts who had got together with their rudimentary home-builts on the Wasserkuppe mountain and who wanted, quite simply, to fly. The aircraft were mainly hang gliders, not much advanced over those used by Pilcher and Lilienthal at the end of the previous century, and using the same method of control—shifting of body weight. The builders appeared to have obtained little profit from wartime aeroplane experience except perhaps in the achievement of a slightly less feather-friend shape; but they were still on the side of the birds in that live legs were used for take-off and landing.