John Pendry

John Malcolm Pendry, born around 1957, is a British hang glider and paraglider pilot. He became Hang Gliding World Champion in 1985 by winning the World Championship in Kossen, Austria, and Paragliding World Champion in 1997 at Castejon de Sos in the Spanish Pyrenees, and he was European Hang Gliding Champion in four consecutive competitions in 1986, 1988, 1990 and 1992. A civil engineering graduate of University College Cardiff, he set an official world distance record of 186 miles in the Owens Valley, Nevada, in 1983 and led the British team to the World Team Cup in 1989 and 1991. From 1991 until 2000 he also competed in paragliding, and later ran a kitesurf school and shop in La Franqui, France.