Re: instructors and other qualified pilot fiends
Posted: 2019/04/14 16:54:32 UTC
Lower angels once in a while if you're really desperate.
http://ozreport.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=59331
USHPA - the not so slow suicide
Is this a joke ?
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/TUGS/message/1184
aerotow instruction was Re: Tug Rates
http://www.ushawks.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=992
Continuing Saga of Weak Link and Release Mechanism Failures
Pro towing: 1 barrel release + weak link or 2 barrel release
http://c2.staticflickr.com/6/5788/23461251751_e98b9c7500_o.png
...your attorney?
Poll on weaklinks
http://ozreport.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=59331
USHPA - the not so slow suicide
Ain't hang gliding just great at extraordinary amounts of discussion and sharing good ideas. So tell me about some of the stuff you've incorporated and gotten off the ground - other than really slick comp gliders that aren't designed to be motorized, tethered, towed, or foot launched or landed.Steve Pearson - 2019/04/11 12:31:49 UTC
1) There has been an extraordinary amount of discussion and good ideas shared over the last 20 years.
What? The really slick comp gliders that aren't designed to be motorized, tethered, towed, or foot launched or landed aren't doing it?(2) These ideas and efforts have been ineffective at arresting the decline of hang gliding.
http://ozreport.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=24846I would argue...
Is this a joke ?
Jim Rooney - 2011/08/26 02:44:10 UTC
Instead of looking for an argument, you may consider listening instead.
I'd argue that there's no such thing as a successful hang gliding school - if you define a school as an institution which turns out competent pilots....that there is no recipe that the USHPA can conceive of that is likely to be adopted and implemented by, or even that is even helpful to a successful school.
WALLABY?!?! There aren't any useable hills within hundreds of miles of Wallaby. How are you expecting gliders to get airborne at that place?That's not to say that the ideas are flawed, but that they are in conflict with our experience. Make a list of the top schools in the last 45 years--KHK, Lookout, Windsports, Mission, Morningside, Wallaby...
Tandem thrill rides and fatality cover-ups....etc. and ask if any of them would have been receptive to adopting a USHPA business plan for managing their business.
How 'bout Manquin, Florida, Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas...?Every school and community is unique--what works in Kitty Hawk is different from Morningside, LA, Chattanooga and San Francisco.
An easily reachable rope - while you're busy fighting a low level lockout with the other hand.The ideas that have been shared are a great resource for schools to consider for business development, but they are not a stand-alone solution.
I'm suggesting that revisiting this subject with clean whiteboards and new participants is unlikely to do any better--we are looking at this from the wrong perspective. It's like trying to push a rope uphill-
See above.-forcing top-down management on a system that doesn't respond to that approach.
Let's also recognize that a lot of students get injured, crippled, killed out of the sport by flight schools and that a lot of them would've been better off learning on their own with solid training manuals and videos and doing all their landings prone and on wheels.Let's recognize that new pilots only come from flight schools (rather than marketing programs).
Mostly total bullshit rules, regulations, expenses imposed by u$hPa. But the requirement that instructors have current CPR certification is really hard to argue with....new pilots only come from flight schools (rather than marketing programs).
That the root of our problem is that sustaining a flight school is near impossible, and compliance with the rules, regulations and expenses imposed by the USHPA...
And nothing else. We certainly don't need to waste any of our valuable time looking at the legitimacy of WHAT is being taught....is a significant burden. And ultimately, the only mechanism for stabilizing hang gliding is to make teaching both easier and more rewarding.
What's the difference between the commercial interests and the Association? Isn't the latter mostly stacked and controlled by the former?There are a couple of familiar refrains that we need to address head-on: (1) commercial interests are in conflict with the best interests of the association...
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/TUGS/message/1184
aerotow instruction was Re: Tug Rates
Larry Jorgensen - 2011/02/17 13:37:47 UTC
Air Adventures NW
Spanaway, Washington
It did not come from the FAA, it came from a USHPA Towing Committee made up of three large aerotow operations that do tandems for hire.
Appalling.
Regarding the safety part of that... Where'd you get your data?...and (2) ideas for promoting growth are too expensive or otherwise subordinate to other priorities.
1. There is a direct and immutable correlation between the health, safety and vitality of every hang gliding community and the status of the local flight school.
Highland Aerosports for example? (Catch that, Bob Very-Little-Experience-With-Towing Kuczewski?)When flight schools close, even thriving communities of pilots diminish within a few short years.
I tried to support my local motherfuckers. And ya know what I ended up getting for my troubles?I can't even think of any exceptions to this. Schools, more than any other factor, are the foundation of our association and we need to stop seeing them as beneficiaries and sources of revenue. We should be supporting them, not taxing them.
Pretend harder. Lock down more, threads, delete more posts, ban more participants from mainstream forums. Aren't you gonna express any gratitude for Jack, Davis, Bob, local clubs?2. How can we pretend to have be successful association with unrelenting declining membership?
What about their Focused Pilot wristbands, HOOK IN! basetube decals, the excellent book, Towing Aloft, by Dennis Pagen and Bill Bryden?Membership is the only product that the USHPA sells...
Fuck their support and membership. And where was Wills Wing when Yours Truly was getting his career terminated?...and all of the associated services are to support membership.
Not including towing... No problem.We could argue that there are a lot of metrics to evaluate the performance of a business, but I can't imagine not including product sales.
Guess your more than happy with all the commercially available tow equipment.Most successful and sustainable businesses invest the majority of their discretionary resources in product development and those who don't more-often fail.
Yeah, tell me about it.That's not to say that investing in product development is any guarantee, just a fundamental requirement.
Hello...Why don't we try something different, like investing in and listening to individuals who have demonstrated aptitude and commitment to achieving our goals?
http://www.ushawks.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=992
Continuing Saga of Weak Link and Release Mechanism Failures
...Steve.Warren Narron - 2012/03/06 02:26:04 UTC
Tad, used to post about as nice as anyone, and nicer than some. Remember?
Blowback... You put in a thousand plus hour$, tooling, te$ting and documenting safety issues for the masses and have it ignored and suppressed by people, for whatever reason, and you would get testy too.
You're fairly snarky as it is, and you haven't done the work...
Suppress fatality reports a lot more effectively. Get Mitch Shipley on site faster to gain control of video cards. Give Tim Herr a much more effective paper shredder.Instead of analyzing and dictating the minutia of how to run a successful flight school, why not ask our instructors, "what can we do to help?"
Fundamental aeronautical competence? Just kidding.What incentives (product and services) can we offer to achieve the outcome we want (growth and pilot retention)?
Beg Jim Keen-Intellect Rooney to return from his self imposed exile in New Zealand. Put him in charge of aerotow weak link standards and enforcement.What specific actions can the USHPA implement develop hang gliding, i.e. to support schools ?
Which would be close to the only ones we would have - if that were possible.1) Provide financial incentives for the development of new pilots.
Assuming they survive the first year.I'm suggesting that a program like rebating the entire 1st year membership fee, and 50% of the second year...
Tandem rides aren't their OTHER income opportunities. Established dedicated hang glider pilots are....would relatively increase membership and long-term income for the USHPA. It would also focus the efforts of schools on making pilots rather than other income opportunities like tandem rides.
Providing the instructor kills no more than two students per season.2) Mandate a reduction in the administrative burden of PASA/RRRG compliance.
3) Reduce the instructor fee, and perhaps even make the first year free.
http://www.hanggliding.org/viewtopic.php?t=273934) Provide funds and support for instructor clinics rather than requiring participant to organize and pay for them.
Pro towing: 1 barrel release + weak link or 2 barrel release
Juan Saa - 2012/10/18 01:19:49 UTC
The normal braking force in pounds for a weak link is around 180, at least that is the regular weak link line used at most aerotow operations. By adding a second weak link to your bridal you are cutting the load on each link by half, meaning that the weak link will not break at the intended 180 pounds but it will need about 360.
If that is what you use and is what your instructor approved then I have no business on interfering, i dont know if you are using the same weak link material but there shoul be only ONE weak link on a tow bridle for it to be effective in breaking before higher loads are put into you and the glider should the glider gets to an attitude or off track so much that the safety fuse of the link is needed to break you free from the tug.
I made the same mistake on putting two weak links thinking that I was adding protection to my setup and I was corrected by two instructors on separate occacions at Quest Air and at the Florida RIdge.
Design and certify gliders to be motorized, tethered, and towed.Wills Wing did this for years--we paid for Tim Morely, Jim Shaw and others to give clinics around the country. More flight schools = more pilots = more glider sales.
In what environments are damn near all competitions conducted?5) Reduce the administrative costs and requirements for sanction competitions.
Celebrations of lives of missing friends.6) Eliminate all fees and requirements for local chapters to hold fly-ins and other community events.
Course not. To make an exhaustive list you'd hafta acknowledge the existence of tow launching. And your gliders aren't designed to be motorized, tethered, or towed.I don't mean this to be an exhaustive list...
After consulting with......just the first things that occurred to me.
http://c2.staticflickr.com/6/5788/23461251751_e98b9c7500_o.png
...your attorney?
http://ozreport.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=31052Certainly we can do better than this?
Poll on weaklinks
Jim Rooney - 2013/03/03 19:37:19 UTC
My response is short because I've been saying it for years... and yes, I'm a bit sick of it.
This is a very old horse and has been beaten to death time and time again... by a very vocal minority.
See, most people are happy with how we do things. This isn't an issue for them. They just come out and fly. Thing's aren't perfect, but that's life... and life ain't perfect. You do what you can with what you've got and you move on.
But then there's a crowd that "knows better". To them, we're all morons that can't see "the truth".
(Holy god, the names I've been called.)
I have little time for these people.
It saddens me to know that the rantings of the fanatic fringe mask the few people who are actually working on things. The fanaticism makes it extremely hard to have a conversation about these things as they always degrade into arguments. So I save the actual conversations for when I'm talking with people in person.
A fun saying that I picked up... Some people listen with the intent of understanding. Others with the intent of responding.
I like that.
For fun... if you're not seeing what I mean... try having a conversation here about wheels.
Not one single up front acknowledgement of the existence of towing as a means of getting airborne - save for the mention of Wallaby where towing is the only possible means of getting airborne. And this is posted on Davis's rag and it's probably been decades since Davis has commenced a flight anywhere other than from the downwind end of a runway with a launch cart underneath him.Finally, these new policies don't address the structural problems with hang gliding like how long it takes to learn, or the physical requirements, or the inconvenience of carrying and storing bulky equipment. That's for us to solve.