I felt keen joy at my skills in air travel at that
moment, and as I stepped back to admire my work, I felt that peculiar
satisfaction of having made something and finding that it was good.
But that moment was short lived, for another problem quickly presented
itself, namely, how would I remove the hang-glider from the tower and
launch it. It was far too large to go down the stairs and needed to be
propelled to a high speed or dropped from a high altitude to become
airborne. Since I had no way of propelling it, I needed to launch it
from the top of the tower, which provided plenty of altitude, but then
the problem of how to remove it from the tower arose. For a moment I was
stumped and almost admitted defeat, but then it came to me.
The tower's only weakness was in its lack of protection against a
deliberate rocking motion. If I was able to swing it back and forth fast
enough by slowly gaining speed and multiplying the momentum, it would be
possible to get it to lean far enough that the dome would snap off,
leaving the room open to the air. This was possible, though rather
unlikely. But I tried anyway.
Starting on one side I began to move from one edge to the other until a
faint rocking motion could be felt.
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