US Hawks Hang Gliding Association

Setting our sights on 2019

New Year's day is a traditional time to assess past progress and to set new goals for the future.

In 2017, both Ed Levin park (thanks Mike Jefferson) and Dockweiler beach (thanks Joe Faust and Frank Colver) were opened to non-USHPA pilots.

In 2018, all of Utah's state parks (thanks Logan) were opened to non-USHPA pilots.

Let's start thinking forward to what we can accomplish in 2019.     

Signed US Hawks and USHGRS Ratings

One of the projects I'd like to work on in 2019 is a cryptographic rating signing system for the US Hawks and possibly USHGRS (if Joe would like it).

Many of you may be familiar with the "key signing" systems that are used to validate web sites. Basically, there are chains of organizations that digitally "sign" encryption keys of other organizations to vouch for their identity. So if you get a key from some unknown organization "X", your computer will see if it's been signed by someone on the computer's list of trusted signers. If none of the signers of organization "X" are in your computer's trusted list, then it might check the signers of the signers. Eventually, the trail will either lead to a signer that your computer trusts or it will be rejected (or marked as unverified).

There's no reason we couldn't use a system like that to allow pilots to rate other pilots. Each rating would have a chain of signers leading back to Joe Faust himself (or some other universally-respected "rating official"). This would provide a way for Joe to distribute the workload.

Bob,

That second post is a bit over my head, but I think i get the idea. It'd be great to help Joe out and make his job a bit easier.

I'm already helping Joe with information found on the internet but I no longer have access to the USHPA's members list which slow things a little.

Bill Cummings wrote:I'm already helping Joe with information found on the internet but I no longer have access to the USHPA's members list which slow things a little.

Isn't it nice how USHPA rewards you for decades of membership?

• Don't pay up this year? No access to anyone else's ratings.
• Don't pay up for 3 years? Even your own ratings disappear.