An acquaintance of mine who
is a SF fan was astonished to find that soaring really exists on Earth
much
as it was portrayed in his favorite stories.

Hei! I would like to read those! Would you be able to enlighten us as
to where one could find them?

Years ago I red a Ben Bova story of a rotating hollow cylindrical spaceship
with hang gliding near the center. "They can stay up all day due to the
reduced gravity." So much for the science in that fiction.
I do have a book called "Free Flight" by Douglas Terman. It's a post World War
3 adventure with the hero flying away from the Russian invaders in his SLMG.

Steve