Chris owned an ASW 19 based at Booker UK(not Lasham)
and an ASW 20 in the USA. He started gliding at Booker
in about 1977 (around the time of the making of the
first Superman Movie), at that time he was an experienced
power pilot, but with little or no previous gliding
experience.

I think the first contact came because there was an
idea put forward by someone to film the 'Superman Flying'
sequences by cutting the front seat off of a two seat
glider and replacing it with a plank on which 'Superman'
would lie and be filmed from behind. We were going
to sell them a Ka13 for this purpose, and I was to
fly it. Somewhat to my surprise, i was told that the
Star (Chris Reeve) proposed to lie on the plank himself,
not use a stunt double.

It all came to nothing because, even 25 years before
the 9/11 attacks, the FAA were not prepared to allow
us to fly that unlikely aircraft amongst New York's
Skyscapers (which was where they wanted to film).

By the time he actually started flying with us, the
idea had been dropped, but I think it was what gave
him the idea of going gliding whilst he was in the
UK. As the instructor who did most of Chris's glider
conversion, I got to know him fairly well, and I have
to record that his private persona was every bit the
courteous and modest gentleman that he presented to
the public.

I'm pretty sure he never owned an LS4, which was the
question that started this reminisence.

At 22:00 15 January 2004, Tim Hanke wrote:
There was a spot on Christopher Reeves on one of the
evening feature
programs maybe 15-20 years ago with him flying an
ASW-20.

Frank Whiteley

Ed Crawley owns the ASW-20 that Superman owned and
flys it out of
Sugarbush, Vermont. Reeves insurance company made him
give up soaring
beacuse it was 'too dangerous' So, he took up horseback
riding (where
the animal is in control)?