Funny Roger (the first message in this thread) should ask. I just
wrote something on this for a friend. The response from the group will
be interesting (I'm braced for the corrections, so try to remember,
this was supposed to be a right brain description, not a totally
accurate scientific one). So here it is:

Why does soaring draw us so powerfully that we will spend hours
preparing for a flight, sit for hours more in a cockpit that makes
Economy Class seating seem cavernous, and come home ecstatic from the
experience?

Why, when we catch a glimpse of a soaring bird, must we stop whatever
we were doing and marvel at the beauty of wings dancing with air
currents?

When someone asked me these questions - actually she asked how I
became involved in soaring, but that is really the same question - I
responded that I must have been a hawk in a former life. It isn't
that I am a firm believer in reincarnation. It's just that there is
no rational explanation for the joy that I derive from soaring, so a
totally crazy answer is closest to the truth.

There is something mystical about seeing the earth from on high in a
glider. Even the Central Valley is beautiful and the Sierras are
absolutely awesome. While logic would say that those views should be
equally impressive from a power plane, the experience is magnified many
times over by being one with the air, dancing with it, using its
resistance in the vertical dimension to overcome its resistance in the
direction of flight. A thermal transforms what is usually thought of as
air resistance into air propulsion. What alchemy!

The experience is further enhanced as we approach cloud base. As we fly
through wisps of mist that are forming the cloud above us I cannot help
but think "This is the closest a person can come to heaven while
still on this plane." So the next time someone asks me why I became
involved in soaring, maybe I'll answer "To better glimpse the Face
of God."