What was I thinking? How could I be so dumb? Did I really think I could get away with shipping my glider to Europe and back? Maybe I wasn't thinking at all. Maybe I wasn't paying attention to what I had been writing in the Oz Report about flying with your hang glider to Europe.

I already knew that the only way to travel back and forth to Europe with your glider was via LTU (now part of airberlin - http://airberlin.com). They have a low rate for hang gliders, 25 Euros, here, and they could be counted on to take your glider.

But I was going to Nice, France, not Dusseldorf, Germany (LTU's hub), and with my glider, that was for sure to be shipped, I'd take the plane to Nice. Unfortunately, it didn't work out that way, especially when it looked like it would be very expensive to ship the glider to France, and then getting it through customs in time, and then getting it back to the states, and back in time for the World Record Encampment.

And then I heard from my teammates, three of whom were flying to Munich via LTU with their hang gliders, and one flying with US Airways with his hang glider from Fort Myers. So I began the process of walking back my plans and my reservations.

I contacted all the airlines that I was going through to get to France and back. First to United Airlines, whose reservation agent just looked in the book and said no. But Lufthansa was actually flying the airplane for United, so I called them. Corinna, who is a Lufthansa flight attendant, said that there was no way that I would get Lufthansa to take my glider to Munich, but surprise surprise they agreed to do so, for $200.

But that was as far as they would go on their Airbus 330-300. Their reservation system wouldn't allow me to put it on the Canadair Regional Jet 900 from Munich to Nice. Now, we already knew that it would fit on the jet, but Lufthansa's subsidiary's reservation system wouldn't allow it. Okay, it looked like I might give it a try at the airport in Munich, and if it didn't work out, I'd drive from Munich to Grasse, near Nice. About eight hours. Might be tough with the jet lag.

Next, I put in a call to the Austrian Airline's reservation system and the answer came up negative on both legs, even with a 777 going from Vienna to Washington DC. I again knew that both jets were big enough to handle the "sailboard" in this case (as there was not a schedule for hang gliders in their system). I thought I might have to drive to Vienna from Nice to just put the hang glider on the 777 from Vienna, but I couldn't even do that.

Okay, I had really blown it, but now what?

I called up airberlin reservation to see if I could get a flight back from Dusseldorf to Washington, DC. I saw that they flew to DC, but whose plane did they use? There was a stop over in New York. It wasn't a direct flight like the ones from Fort Myer to Dusseldorf in big airplanes. Would this work?

Well, I bought a refundable ticket and got a reservation from Dusseldorf to Washington, DC. when their reservation system let me take my hang glider with me (as long as it was 70 pounds or less). That included, get this, the United Airlines Shuttle from New York to DC. United wouldn't let me reserve a spot for my hang glider on their system, but airberlin would and I made sure that it was booked all the way through to DC. We'll see.

Next, I had to reserve a Volkswagen Polo at Munich and be able to drive it back to Dusseldorf a month later. I already had a reservation for that vehicle to pick up in Nice and to leave in Nice, but now I had to do a bunch more driving. That turned out to be possible at about the same cost.

I have yet to cancel the tickets from Munich to Nice and from Nice to Washington. DC., and it will be costly to cancel these tickets. What an idiot I am and I'm paying for it.

So it isn't reality it is the set of rules in the reservation system that determines whether or not your hang glider fits on the plane or not. Next time, LTU, airberlin, all the way.

Of course, none of the actual flying has happened yet, so we'll see how it goes.