instructors and other qualified pilot fiends

[Tad Eareckson]

http://ozreport.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=45440
The Future of Free Flight in the U.S. is at Risk!

Rodger Hoyt - 2015/12/04 7:00:09 UTC

I guess those who surf, ski, rollerblade, skateboard, scuba, etc. can't do their sports without insurance either, right? Even our Part 103 brethren, the US Ultralight Association, requires no insurance with membership (although it is an option).

What a mess USHPA has managed itself into. Now it wants more money to perpetuate the same failed policies.

Who knows? Maybe they'll get better results.

Free flight isn't at risk - only USHPA is at risk. I'm so glad I withdrew before all of this crap hit the fan.

I consider the treatment I got at the hands of those motherfuckers to be an honor.

Let's let USHPA bite the dust and see what happens. It couldn't be any worse than what they have done.

I'll happily echo those sentiments.

Michael Grisham - 2015/12/05 21:46:46 UTC

Father to 18 year old alcoholic son: "Here are the keys to the 427 AC Cobra and a bottle of tequila. Go out and have some fun with your date tonight, and don't worry about the loss of insurance after your last accident. We're self insured now. Get high and have fun, son."

That's crazy, but that is what the USHPA is...

...still...

...asking you to do.

Mark Forbes doesn’t want to provide insurance for "Free Fight" Hang Gliding. He wants you to self insure commercial operations posing the greatest liability risk, tandem, towing...

Get fucked. Mainstream towing IS a disaster area. BUT:

- u$hPa's biggest ever insurance nightmare was/is the 2010/07/03 Chelan Butte dust devil incident. Could've happened at a tow site but it DIDN'T and I'd wager that that sorta thing is more likely to be an issue at a western mountain site.

- Nine US fatal crashes this year.

-- ONE had shit to do with towing and that was total fringe activity.

-- SIX would NOT have happened in tow environments.

-- The remaining two were glider hardware issues with no relation to launch methods or environments.

--- One was a sidewire failure which took out another asshole who'd refused to do preflight stomp tests his entire career.

--- The other involved an aircraft which appeared to be for recreational purposes and neither the motherfuckers at Ridgely nor the motherfuckers at u$hPa have given us a penny's worth of an indication as to what the problem was.

...and joy rides. What type of operations will the RRG be spending your money defending in addition to the two million?

As many as I can manage.

Like the following:
VENARD v. JACKSON HOLE PARAGLIDING, LLC
Are all you Hang Gliding Pilots prepared to donate your life savings for insuring boat towing paragliding?

I'd be willing to donate a bit to have Stuart Caruk neutralized.

Some of the best advice in flight training involves rehearsing what to do in an emergency.

Swallow the video card and buy off all the eyewitnesses.

Preparation is invaluable when things go sideways. Our present insurance situation is just such an emergency.

When the military has safety problems, there in a general stand-down with an investigation as to the safety risks and liabilities.

Do they release the results or just run them through the shredder the way Tim Herr does?

The USHPA should stand down those activities posing the greatest liability risk to the association.

Cool. Let's eliminate foot launching and mountain flying and go full dolly and platform launched towing.

The following should cease immediately:

No tandem flying. The FAA tandem exemption should be rescinded.

Hear! Hear!

No temporary thirty day memberships - joy rides, bucket checkers, T-shirt flights.

See above.

No insurance for commercial operators.

How 'bout no commercial operators?

In addition:

All towing operations (except aero-towing) require a designated winch operator to release tow tension and capable of cutting the tow line within one second. The alternative - no towing.

- Since we refuse to utilize the available equipment that enables the PILOT to make and execute his own decisions.

- What the fuck do you mean "(except aero-towing)"? One hundred percent of tugs have releases that can and do blow off gliders with a squeeze of a lever on a joystick or stomp on pedal. The problems are they never get used to keep a anyone in a low level lockout from getting killed and sometimes they get used to kill a Rob Richardson and knock his passenger unconscious.

- Yeah, let's have Michael Grisham...

Michael Grisham - Nevada - 25491 - H4 - 1984/08/22 - Richard Cobb - FL AWCL CL FSL RLF TUR XC

...tell us all how we should be running towing. Maybe put Bob Kuczewski, Rick Masters, Sam Kellner on his committee.

- Did you bother fucking reading VENARD v. JACKSON HOLE PARAGLIDING, LLC?

In August of 2008, Mr. Venard attended a paragliding training clinic at the Palisades Reservoir near Alpine, Wyoming, offered by Appellee, Jackson Hole Paragliding, LLC (JHP). During the clinic, Mr. Venard was towed in the air by a cable attached to a boat. He was thirty-five feet in the air when the operation failed and he fell to the ground, suffering severe injuries.

The only way you FALL to the ground when a tow operation fails is when your thrust is cut. In hang gliding we call it an inconvenience. And here's what happens when a Bob Show tow operator makes a good decision in the interest of the safety of a Bob Show pilot:

http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8143/7462005802_bbc0ac66ac_o.jpg


http://www.ushawks.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=17&t=1081
Platform towing /risk mitigation / accident

Sam Kellner - 2012/07/03 02:25:58 UTC

No, you don't get an accident report.

This is an emergency.

Put the heads of all the sleazy motherfuckers who precipitated it on pikes.

Action should be taken to minimize the risk to save “Free Flight".

The USHPA cannot and will not survive by just collecting your money to pay for the irresponsible behavior of those posing the greatest risk.

Lemme know when you Bob Show assholes have done something about Sam and the Bob Show assholes enabling him.

[Tad Eareckson]

http://ozreport.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=45440
The Future of Free Flight in the U.S. is at Risk!

Dave Gills - 2015/12/06 20:00:19 UTC

Michael Grisham - 2015/12/05 21:46:46 UTC

The following should cease immediately:

No tandem flying. The FAA tandem exemption should be rescinded.

No temporary 30 day memberships - Joy rides, bucket checkers, tee shirt flights.

No insurance for commercial operators.

In addition:

All towing operations (except aero-towing) require a designated winch operator to release tow tension and capable of cutting the tow line within one second. The alternative - no towing.

This is an emergency. Action should be taken to minimize the risk to save "Free Flight".

The USHPA cannot and will not survive by just collecting your money to pay for the irresponsible behavior of those posing the greatest risk.

We have a winner folks.

No we don't. We've got another Bob Show loser making a few good points. Even Bob and Rick are capable of doing that once in a while.

100.00 percent of anti tow people are assholes. (Ditto for Aussie Methodists - similar reasons.)

This motherfucker is demanding two people on the bottom end of a platform tow. We don't need more cooks to compensate for incompetent drivers at the bottom end and incompetent pilots and shit equipment at the top end for what is already THE...

Zack C - 2011/03/04 05:29:28 UTC

As for platform launching, I was nervous about it when I started doing it. It looked iffy, like things could get bad fast. I've since logged around a hundred platform launches and have seen hundreds more. Never once was there any issue. I now feel platform launching is the safest way to get a hang glider into the air (in the widest range of conditions). You get away from the ground very quickly and don't launch until you have plenty of airspeed and excellent control.

...SAFEST WAY TO GET A HANG GLIDER INTO THE AIR.

Ban all the tandem and commercial crap - just like Michael says. That takes Arys Moorhead out of the equation and leaves him free to take a hop on a sailplane if he wants. Then if Kelly Harrison wants to use a driver he's meeting in the parking lot, go up with total shit for towing equipment, a radio with no helmet headset, wheels extended off the basetube, and a parachute he hasn't thought about for ten years and kill himself doing what he loves - then LET HIM. This is what keeps the hang gliding gene pool a little bit healthier than it would be otherwise.

If we wanna mandate more cooks why don't we put them on launch ramps? This year in the US a designated Ramp Tech could've definitely saved Rafi Lavin and Craig Pirazzi - one day apart - for absolute sure and probably Karen Carra. The Ramp Tech does the sidewire stomp tests, checks suspension and leg loops, ensures hook-in checks are executed, assists as or with wire crew if necessary, coaches on launch position and glider trim, and advises on launch cycles. We'd get fifty times the bang for the buck with a Ramp Tech over some asshole on the back of a truck with a dump lever and hook knife.

This guy:

http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8143/7462005802_bbc0ac66ac_o.jpg


would almost certainly have been fine if he hadn't had some Grisham/u$hPa mandated asshole with a dump lever on the winch. And if he wouldn't he most assuredly wouldn't have ended up any more instantly killed.

If you wanna legislate towing safety then outlaw Infallible Weak Links and any release system that isn't as good as something else that came out yesterday.

You'll notice that ONE of the nine US fatal crashes we've had so far this year, 11.1 percent, had shit to do with towing and that was total u$hPa sanctioned fringe activity - and what problem is everyone trying to fix? Sure ain't Bertrand Delacroix, Jesse Fulkersin, or Karen Carra. It's a commercial douchebag taking an eleven year old kid on a thrill ride.

Fuck Michael. No interest, experience, competence in towing but he's gonna tell us all to do it his way or not at all. Not one fucking word about one fucking piece of equipment other than a bottom end hook knife.

Also...Tie your freak'n glider down.

How?

http://www.westcoastsoaringclub.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=5959
Chelan Butte Dust Devil Blender....

Holger Selover-Stephan - 2010/07/08 16:35
Portland, Oregon

There are tie-downs at Chelan Butte and this glider was tied down until the pilot removed them to move his glider to the launch.

How are ya gonna move it to launch if it's tied down? If you're gonna have it tied down all the time why not just leave it in the bag and securely strapped to the racks?

There are FOUR PEOPLE on this glider when it gets hit.

01-00000


20-00727

Dontchya think that if this guy...

57-01527


...had had the lead time to tie it back down HE WOULD HAVE? Dontchya think that if he'd known that was coming he'd have stayed in bed that day?

That was over five years and five months ago and I have yet to hear one single individual identify one single inappropriate action that was taken or identify one single remedial action that COULD/SHOULD have been taken.

I've had my glider hit by two dust devils - once in the breakdown area of the Woodstock LZ and once on a launch dolly at Ridgely. And guess what. There weren't any tiedowns available in the relevant areas. Nothing bad happened in either case 'cause I was right there and neither was too powerful to be dealt with by one individual.

[Tad Eareckson]

P.S. for the previous post...

That dust devil incident is, I believe, the most expensive liability issue in the history of US hang gliding. It may very well be that the current insurance crisis is due in no small part to the insurance industry's understanding that there is no real way to defend against, reduce the likelihood of a recurrence. Member pilots only on the wires in response to an approaching dust devil? Fine, you increase the probability that the glider's gonna get away and slam into who-knows-what/whom.

http://ozreport.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=45440
The Future of Free Flight in the U.S. is at Risk!

Bill Cummings - 2015/12/06 07:01:46 UTC

Here in Region #4 we failed to make enough money at our Memorial Day and Columbus Day Fly-Ins to cover our insured sites.

If the premium had stayed the same we would only have come up this year with a third of the cost to renew the site insurance.

I was starting to feel good about us having to fire the insurance company but they ruined the fun by quitting on us.

So even if the insurance was affordable (which it wasn't) we would have to stop insuring some of our sites. OOPS DARN IT! I can't get use to it yet ---- they aren't going to insure ANY of our sites.

The good news is for even more money (that we don't have) insurance could be made available that's out of our price range completely. (And here I thought I was totally out of options.)

I'm a Hang Gliding pilot. I don't care to support any other endeavor outside of recreational hang gliding.

I have enough BLM sites around me that I don’t need site insurance or insurance protection against a third party. The reason being is that the closest third parties, at these BLM sites, are too far away to crash into, even if someone paid me a thousand dollars to do it.

So I've been paying for insurance that hasn't been of any use to me personally and I'm fed up with insuring others and especially those outside of the sport of Hang Gliding.

As a pilot with over four thousand flights my dues have been a steady stream, some of which went into the pockets of insurance companies since the beginning of the 80's. Never costing them a nickel.

If my money stream no longer holds any interest for the insurance companies -
I can just hang onto it.

http://ozreport.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=25321
Stop the Stupids at the USHPA BOD meeting

Mark G. Forbes - 2011/09/29 02:26:23 UTC

We can establish rules which we think will improve pilot safety, but our attorney is right.

Course he is. We pay him to be right, right?

USHPA is not in the business of keeping pilots "safe" and it can't be. Stepping into that morass is a recipe for extinction of our association.

You sure, Mark? Back in the Eighties and early Nineties Doug Hildreth was publishing in the magazine every month and totally swimming in that morass putting out solid analysis and recommendations - and we weren't going extinct. When was the last time any of you u$hPa motherfuckers tried dipping a toe in that morass?

I wish it were not so, but it is. We don't sell equipment, we don't offer instruction...

Not any GOOD instruction anyway.

...and we don't assure pilots that they'll be safe.

Name some pilots who've asked or expected you to assure them that they'll be safe. NOBODY in this game has ever asked or expected that. But what they DO ask, expect, pay for:
- competent instruction
- standards complied with
- safety advisories
- solid crash and incident reports
- fair treatment

And you motherfuckers bend over backwards to do the extreme polar opposite of all that at every possible opportunity.

Even so, we get sued periodically by people who say we "shoulda, coulda, woulda" done something that would have averted their accident.

And, of course, they're always totally wrong 'cause, obviously, you assholes are constantly working for the quality of the sport to the very best of your abilities - as any fool can plainly see by your comment here:

http://www.hanggliding.org/viewtopic.php?t=27736
Increase in our USHpA dues

Mark G. Forbes - 2012/12/20 06:21:33 UTC

There are also numerous legal issues associated with accident reports, which we're still wrestling with. It's a trade-off between informing our members so they can avoid those kinds of accidents in the future, and exposing ourselves to even more lawsuits by giving plaintiff's attorneys more ammunition to shoot at us.

Imagine a report that concludes, "If we'd had a procedure "x" in place, then it would have probably prevented this accident. And we're going to put that procedure in place at the next BOD meeting." Good info, and what we want to be able to convey. But what comes out at trial is, "Ladies and Gentlemen of the Jury, my client suffered injury because USHPA knew or should have known that a safety procedure was not in place, and was therefore negligent and at fault." We're constantly walking this line between full disclosure and handing out nooses at the hangmen's convention.

It's not just concern for meet directors and policy makers...it's about our continued existence as an association.

Which is currently going down like a cinder block anyway - despite your best efforts to suppress competent instruction, standards implementation and compliance, safety advisories, solid crash and incident reports, and fair treatment of members. Go figure.

It's about minimizing the chance of our getting sued out of existence.

Like you're being now, you mean?

We're one lawsuit away from that, all the time...

And I know just the one to do it - ten times over. (Anybody wanna take a guess as to which one I'm thinking about?)

...and we think hard about it.

How can we better suppress competent instruction, standards implementation and compliance, safety advisories, solid crash and incident reports, and fair treatment of members.

I would LOVE to not have to think that way...

It's been too long, Mark. Too much wiring has hardened. You are now physiologically incapable of thinking any other way.

...but every time a legal threat arises, it reminds me that we have a very dysfunctional legal system in this country...

A very dysfunctional legal system in this country that ONLY ever dysfunctions in the favor of the guy who's had his brain turned to mush or the parents of the eleven year old kid you've just smashed into the lakebed. How inconvenient.

...(note: not a "justice" system...there's little justice involved)...

So?

- If the injustice is neutral shouldn't you get away with just as much criminal negligence as you're unjustly found to be culpable for? Or are you saying that the injustice favors the plaintiff one hundred percent of the time? And if you ARE saying that can you give us some data to support that claim?

- Your attorney isn't good enough to make the injustice system work in your favor? Maybe you'd have been paying less for insurance if you'd paid more for a better attorney.

...and we have to recognize that reality and deal with it.

Doesn't look to me like y'all have been dealing with that - or any other - reality very well. Maybe you need to be doing more of the same things over and over to get better results.

Tad Eareckson - 2015/09/15 17:31:52 UTC

We're not ever gonna be able to kill you, Mark. We let you get too entrenched for that to be able to happen.

Well, that's one thing I've gotten majorly wrong on Kite Strings. We ARE killing you and you're going down at a rate I didn't dream was possible less than three months ago. Actually, you're mostly killing yourself - but we've been here all along saying all the right things and making pretty much all the right predictions.

You're:
- paying more for your insurance and will soon have it cut off
- attempting to self insure at huge cost and making yourselves way more vulnerable
- keeping in power all the same sleazy inbred motherfuckers constantly implementing ever increasingly sleazy policy

You don't have a snowball's chance in hell of turning this trend around and surviving. And how many people do you estimate have had their lives destroyed or ended as consequences of your implementation of this despicable, insane, and totally failed policy?

[Tad Eareckson]

http://ozreport.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=45440
The Future of Free Flight in the U.S. is at Risk!

Michael Grisham - 2015/12/06 19:17:51 UTC

What is at issue is assuming the financial risk of irresponsible behavior. With just the scant facts of the case, Mr. Venard had just joined the USHPA one month prior and was a trainee. Is there anyone out there who is going to make an argument that towing a paraglider behind a boat is the safest way to teach a new student how to paraglide?

Jackson man: Let suit proceed in Teton Co.

http://www.jhnewsandguide.com/news/top_stories/jackson-man-let-suit-proceed-in-teton-co/article_0b8b075f-a1dd-523d-b4d7-72111f4f6580.html
Jackson man: Let suit proceed in Teton Co. - Jackson Hole News&Guide: Top Stories

Emma Breysse
Jackson Hole

2012/03/17 00:00
2013/10/17 15:20 - Updated

Jackson man: Let suit proceed in Teton Co.

Jackson Hole Paragliding and six instructors named in the suit contend that since they and Venard are all members of the United States Hang Gliding Association, Venard must comply with association rules that require him to sue other members in California, the association’s home state. The six instructors are Tom Bartlett, Scott Harris, Matt Combs, Jon Hunt, Andrew Frye and Jeff Coulter.

Venard alleges that he was "near-fatally" injured in 2008 due to the negligence of paragliding instructors working for Jackson Hole Paragliding. He claimed he fell 35 feet during a clinic on Palisades Reservoir while being towed behind a boat.

In his suit and in his Supreme Court appeal, he alleges his instructors did not give him guidance despite a heavy tailwind, advised him not to use a safety bridle and didn't investigate his equipment despite signs it wasn't working right.

Yeah, dickhead.

- The guy was and is a Two which qualifies one for supervised launches off thousand foot ramps.

- 35 feet is easy scooter tow altitude - and everyone and his fuckin' dogs trip all over themselves praising Steve Exceptionally-Knowledgeable Wendt and his Blue Sky Scooter Towing training - adopted by Wills Wing the better part of nine years ago.

- Behind a BOAT! Oh my GAWD! Like the way one hundred percent of hang gliding was done before people figured out they could run off hills with these things.

Strong tailwind, paraglider equivalent of a pro toad bridle, defective release. But it would've been fine if he'd been launched off a fifty foot training hill in a strong tailwind and forced upright "training" harness on a hang glider with a bent leading edge and strong turn in it.

You Bob Show motherfuckers never miss an opportunity to piss all over towing whenever you can find some grossly negligent crunch incident - unless it involves other Bob Show motherfuckers - while studiously ignoring the hundredfold mountain of carnage that amasses in stringless flying.

The underwriter's of insurance don't write insurance policies or cancel insurance policies on some imaginary whim. They are looking at hard data, statistics, and the cases they have had to payout defending. They have determined that the USHPA is an unacceptable risk.

So how come they don't just look at hard data, statistics, and the cases they have had to pay out defending the way you do and just cut towing loose? If they just did the hill, mountain, cliff stuff they could drop the premium to a buck per member per year.

Mark Forbes is asking the pilot group to assume the liability that the insurance underwriters have determined unacceptable without any changes in the operations posing the greatest risk.

Since Tim Herr shreds all the crash reports he can get his hands on and the only way we muppets ever get to hear about anything is if somebody gets killed how the fuck are we muppets supposed to know what's posing the greatest risks?

In this emergency, the risky operations need to be eliminated. Without a major change in behavior of the USHPA, the RRG will not secede because additional funding will be required to pay for the irresponsible unsafe behavior of the few contributing the least and making the most money.

Cool. Let's shut down foot launching. Every shred of anecdotal evidence I can get my hands on, along with common sense, shows us that that's where the major problems are. If ya wanna fly mountains use platform, aero, flying launch cart to get up from the valleys, lakes, rivers in front of them.

Luke Waters - 2015/12/07 15:25:38 UTC

If this happens hang gliding will die with this generation of pilots.

This intellectually castrated sport is doing that anyway.

Janica Lee - 2015/12/07 17:06:53 UTC

Statistically, tandems rarely result in students who stick with it (+ pay the annual membership fee).

Tandem "instruction" kills interest in pursuing the sport.

Some say career instructors won't be able to continue operations if their bread-and-butter tandem revenue disappears, resulting in no more source of instruction.

Good. Their "instruction" couldn't get much worse if there were a hundred thousand dollar prize for whoever could kill off the most students in a season.

Unpaid mentors abound everywhere.

When I told Mike Robertson that's all I wanted to do with my third stint as a certified instructor he deliberately crashed me twice on tow and flunked me from his clinic despite (because of) my having the highest scores in the class.

A number of them learned through unpaid mentorship themselves.

That's how I learned the better stuff I wasn't able to figure out for myself.

Quality of instruction does not necessarily correlate with the amount of money spent on it.

There's an inverse relationship.

Several wing manufacturers confirmed not all dealers are required to have an instructor rating.

Wills Wing went from representing their dealers as only the best of the best to putting out a disclaimer that they needed to be regarded as the snake oil salesmen they all were.

Those who truly want to learn to fly will find a way.

Couldn't get any worse. Ask Arys' family if you don't wanna take my word for it.

[Tad Eareckson]

http://ozreport.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=45440
The Future of Free Flight in the U.S. is at Risk!

Janica Lee - 2015/12/07 17:06:53 UTC

Having said all that, I think there is value in true tandem instruction. A highly-respected biwingal instructor takes HG students tandem on a PG + vice versa to give new pilots a sense of the other wing's launch/flying/landing characteristics.

Tell me about these highly respected instructors. What are some of the amazing insights they relay to their students that the rest of us muppets never really get.

Remember when Jim Keen-Intellect Rooney...



...was God's Gift to aviation in general and aerotowing and tandem instruction in particular? Not so much any more, huh?

Leads to a deeper understanding of how to share air politely and safely.

Great. That must be why there are so few hang/para glider midairs in whatever his region is compared to all the others.

Luke Waters - 2015/12/07 17:06:53 UTC

Why? Simple economics.

Look at ratings issued in the last six months or year.

Let's also look at some of the ones revoked and the justifications given.

Well over ninety percent have been issued by instructors who make their living doing discovery flights.

And then they all flock over to The Jack Show to try to learn how to take off, fly, and land. Also the number of hang checks they should do in the setup and staging areas.

Eliminate those ratings and growth of the sport will be a tiny fraction of what it is now.

That would be a good thing - seeing as how our "growth" is all negative.

Hang gliding manufactures, instructors, schools, and everyone involved with hang gliding as a business are hardly staying afloat as it is.

Well let's hear it for the manufacturers and thank them for all the excellent work they've done in addressing kill rates and settling all the perpetual controversial issues we see on the forums.

With a fraction of the current growth and numbers all of those businesses will be closed in a matter of a few years.

OK, let's hear what they have to say in this discussion.

..........

Right.

All of your other arguments are moot. Tandem conversions percentages, career instructors vs unpaid mentor-ship, dealers without instruction, etc etc... all those arguments simply don't matter. The bottom line is flight schools and the majority of full time instructors keep the lights on by doing discovery flights.

And forcing people into their degrading instructional programs for however long it takes to perfect their flare timing and spot landings.

Instructors must have a way to make a living or they find something else to do.

They can sell the body parts of some of their less successful students.

Eliminate the ability to do discovery flights and everything changes.

The launch lines shorten and the recreational pilots stop being treated as distractions.

Where are you going to buy parts to service your glider or buy your next glider when there are no US manufactures?

You askin' me?

Where are you going to send people who want to learn with no instructors?

Some place where there are no instructors. Been doing that for years.

Hang gliding as we know it today will be gone with the current generation of pilots, period.

Good. What I've been trying to do must be working.

[Tad Eareckson]

http://ozreport.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=45440
The Future of Free Flight in the U.S. is at Risk!

Brian McMahon - 2015/12/07 22:41:02 UTC

Hang Gliding has been a dying sport for the last twenty to thirty years. The party was over a long time ago. This isn't really about the death of hang gliding though, this is about a bunch of sites that are currently insured through the USHPA site insurance program. I don't know if this call for money for the RRG directly affects the Instructors/Tandem/Pilot 3PL insurance or what. The whole thing is twisted up really nice to where it's hard to say what we need or have to have to keep hang gliding alive.

A few key individuals dead would be a nice start.

What are the possibilities for pilots to acquire insurance for 3PL on their own?

What are the possibilities for instructors / tandem instructors to acquire 3PL on their own?

Who give's a rat's ass?

What are the possibilities for the currently USHPA insured sites to band together and create an RRG or otherwise acquire site insurance?

Janica Lee - 2015/12/07 23:48:44 UTC

Luke Waters - 2015/12/07 17:06:53 UTC

Look at ratings issued in the last six months or year. Well over ninety percent have been issued by instructors who make their living doing discovery flights.

Correct. This is because USHPA gutted the Special Observer program back in 2010. Perhaps that decision should be revisited.

Reference:
http://www.hanggliding.org/viewtopic.php?t=15591
save the special observers

Eliminate the ability to do discovery flights and everything changes.

Forgive me but I don't follow. How do commercial tandems support the existence of wing manufacturers? As I mentioned before, all dealers are not instructors.

They buy new tandem gliders.

http://i.imgur.com/tt379.jpg


If...



http://c2.staticflickr.com/6/5788/23461251751_e98b9c7500_o.png

...they survive the old ones anyway.



Where are you going to send people who want to learn with no instructors?

How did the fucking Wright Brothers learn to fly with no instructors? Try conventional aviation texts. People with functional brains will be able to figure things out and the assholes without aren't doing the sport any good anyway.

To the hill to listen and learn from senior pilots and mentors.

Dave Hopkins, for example...

http://www.hanggliding.org/viewtopic.php?t=33501
How we judge our flying risk

Dave Hopkins - 2015/10/15 14:25:26 UTC

I agree with going upright at a decent alti. Head down with hands on the base tube has killed several pilots. Eliminate that from your flying and fight Accelerated risk factor.

Where would our young pilots be without him?

Just like our betters did before USHPA existed.

I'm looking at the history of this sport for my betters and not having much luck. I'd imagine you wouldn't be having as many difficulties.

Furthermore, one needn't have much in the way of brains to figure out up/down/left/right and headwind/tailwind/shadow/gradient/rotor - which is more than enough to get one going reasonably safely.

And why dontchya tell me 'bout some of the less straightforward, more complex issues of aeronautics that you've picked up in the course of your flying career. I myself don't have much that I couldn't quickly and easily get through to a halfway intelligent junior high school kid.

Luke Waters - 2015/12/08 17:20:32 UTC

Hang gliding isn't what it used to be, it will never be.

That's something we could have in our favor. It sucked when I came in in 1980, never did anything worth writing home about in the subsequent decade and a half, and took a turn south like I could've never believed possible after that.

The sooner we as a group accept that and move on to embrace what the sport is now, the better our future will be.

What we have now is absolutely vile and ditto times ten for anybody who embraces it.

[Tad Eareckson]

http://www.hanggliding.org/viewtopic.php?t=33727
Do we really need insurance?

Mark G. Forbes - 2015/12/02 06:02:48 UTC

Our corporate attorney, Tim Herr, is a hang glider pilot.

Yeah. A really good one...

Timothy Herr - San Jose - 48274 - Pilot - Exp: 2016/01/01

...too. His Funston buddies are always talking about him and his YouTube channel needs to be seen to be believed.

Robert Kesselring - West Virginia - 96723 - H2 - 2015/07/19 - Matthew Masters - FL CL FSL

Check out the u$hPa numbers and do the math.
How come you Jack Show assholes let this motherfucker get away with feeding you crap like this?

[Tad Eareckson]

Expanding on the previous post...

Here's our alleged "hang glider pilot" bracketed inside ordered sequences of before and after u$hPa numbers:

43862 - Joe Idoni - H4 - 1991/11/14 - Leo Bynum - FL AWCL CL FSL RLF TUR XC - Exp: 2008/08/31
44239 - Manuel Eg da Silva - H3 - 1988/07/10 - Jeffrey Nicolay - FL AWCL CL FSL TUR - Exp: 5/31/1999
44854 - Daniel Iaquinto - H4 - 1991/04/29 - J. Keller - FL AWCL CL FSL RLF TUR XC - Exp: 1997/12/31
45297 - William Eads - H3 - 1992/09/01 - Patrick Caulfield - PA AWCL CL FSL RLF TUR - Exp: 2001/05/31
46276 - Harry Carden - Chattanooga - H2 - Matthew Taber - 1987/06/27 - FL CL FSL - Exp: 1998/06/30
48260 - William Odom - H3 - 1990/03/03 - Kenneth de Russy - FL FSL - Exp: 1998/02/28
48272 - Kim Rowe - H2 - 1993/09/18 - S. Rowe - FL PA - Exp: 2007/03/31
48274 - Timothy Herr - San Jose - Pilot - Exp: 2016/01/01
48287 - Jerz Rossignol - H5 - 1995/03/29 - Gregg Lawless - AT FL AWCL CL FSL RLF TUR XC - Exp: 2005/11/30
48299 - Greg Sugg - H4 R. Fischer - 1993/05/16 - AT FL AWCL CL FSL RLF TUR XC - MNTR - Exp: 2016/05/31
50833 - Lois Breden - Chattanooga - 2007/11/30 - H3 - 1993/09/10 - Rick Jacob - FL AWCL CL FSL RLF TUR XC - Exp: 1998/06/30
51188 - Anthony Abbruzzese - H3 - 1996/03/08 - James Tindle - AT FL FSL - Exp: 12/31/2005
51532 - Paul Gadd - H4 - 12/10/1990 - D Freeman - FL AWCL CL FSL RLF TUR XC - Exp: 2004/10/31
52247 - Ben Jackson - H1 - 2001/06/02 - Patrick Denevan - FL - Exp: 2002/06/30
53015 - Eddie Bell - Chattanooga - H2 - 1991/05/02 - Rick Jacob - FL CL FSL - Exp: 2001/07/31

So it's a pretty safe bet that he sent his first check off in the mail around the middle of 1993 - about two and a quarter decades ago. And he has yet to qualify as a Hang Zero. A bit odd that he hasn't also been declared to be a paraglider pilot - seeing as how that's the Industry flavor from which u$hPa derives about 99 percent of its revenue.

And u$hPa, as we all well know, determines pilot status and proficiency currency by dues payment record and harmlessness to the interests of the Corporation - irrespective of whether or not one's ever actually clipped into a glider.

[Dave Gills]

So it's a pretty safe bet that he sent his first check off in the mail around the middle of 1993 - about two and a quarter decades ago. And he has yet to qualify as a Hang Zero.

It does say pilot
I need to borrow one of your ROTFL pink cats & post this on DOT ORGy.

[Tad Eareckson]

It's not my cat. It's theirs. That's where I stole it from. Just click "View more Emoticons" when composing a Jack Show post and you'll get that GIF from this ":roflcat:" coding.

I have a post on stealing smilies at:
http://www.kitestrings.org/post7093.html#p7093

They're just images and you treat them just like any other image. On a Mac "control" click on the image to "Copy Image Address" and bracket it with the "img" BBCode for images. I've swapped j for g below so's you can see what's going on.

---

[imj]http://forum.hanggliding.org/images/smilies/roflcat.gif[/imj]
---

One of our "Mr. Green"s:

which is coded:
:mrjreen:
could be displayed over there using:
[imj]http://www.kitestrings.org/images/smilies/icon_mrgreen.gif[/imj]
or, for that matter, over here:


And, of course, a logged in member here can access the coding of any post by clicking "QUOTE".