"You're with the birds, "says Steve Prater. "If you're ever fortunate enough, you'll fly with an eagle, a bald eagle, hawks and buzzards even. It's awesome!"

Prater is one of a handful of pilots planning to fly on this day. It takes about thirty to 45 minutes to assemble each glider.

Most cost about $5,000. And Steve has another $2,000 or so tied up in his instruments and harness - a harness that includes a parachute.

Prater explains, "In an emergency, you grab the thing and you toss it and hopefully, it does what it's supposed to do."

Then there's the training; each one of the glider pilots are certified and licensed to do this. In spite of the fact they'll be jumping into thin air, they don't consider themselves daredevils.

Prater says, "It's not an extreme dangerous sport. Motorcycle riding is more dangerous. Sometimes waking across the street is more dangerous. This sport is as dangerous as you make it."

In less than 10 steps David Dunning launches himself into the Arkansas skies. He's been gliding for 31 years.

It was 1975 when he read an article about gliding in Time magazine and he's been hooked ever since. Today, he hopes to catch extra altitude by running the ridge.

Dunning explains, "Where the wind is being deflected upward by the side of the mountain. And it creates what we call a lift band where it's possible to get up and just fly around in that and stay up as long as you want to. And I would like, maybe today, to get up to the cloud base. That's always fun to get up close to the clouds."

The modern flexible wing hang glider was developed in 1963. But men have been soaring in large kite like contraptions since the 1880's.

German Otto Lilienthal became an aviation pioneer -- staying aloft in his glider by using the same ridge running technique these pilots are using today.

There is the wind rushing by and the noise of your instruments. But pilot Chris Price says after a while, all that goes away

And then it's just you and your thoughts, thousands of feet above the rest of the world.

Price says, "Watching everybody going on about their daily routine from altitude, you know. Just kind of in your own personal space in the sky. It's beautiful kind of sitting above the world."

It turns out that on top of Mount Nebo, lots of folks come to watch more than the birds fly. It just might leave you Amazed by Arkansas.