volplane
verbEtymology From French vol plané (“gliding flight”).
1
To perform a volplane.
- 1916, Wilfred Percy ("Billie") Nevill, letter, in 1991, Ruth Elwin Harris (editor), Billie: The Nevill Letters, 1914-1916, Julia Macrae, page 143, […] when well over the bosche lines & he volplaned home, just skimmed over our & the Bosche trenches, they all fired at him like sin, of course, and landed about 1000 yards back on a hill.
- Curtains of vapor drift back to reveal the Americans, volplaning along well inside ten meters and only a little faster than the balloon.1973, Thomas Pynchon, Gravity's Rainbow:
2
To glide.
Of a bird or gliding animal