[Bob Kuczewski]

America was built on competition.
American citizens thrive on competition.

Let's stop our train at the recreation hill where the land owners and managers are protected from prosecution by the Hold Harmless Acts in each state.
   :
Contrary to what greedy people think not paying your USHPA dues does not mean you will forget everything you had learned and been rated for.

We need a group of hang gliding attorneys to form a pro bono organization to handle suits against landowners, at no cost to them. After several lawsuits get thrown out, because of the landowner liability protections, then they could just present some "boiler plate" papers to a judge to get cases thrown out, without a lot of work on the attorney's part.

When I read what you guys write ...

                         ... I know I'm in the right place!!!   

[Rick Masters]

If we get this train wreck back on the rails with the RRG effort will the rails take the train in the same direction?

The answer is no.
Many assume (or hope) the RRG is a fix to a problem that was headed our way as part of the natural course of things.
This isn't what is going on.
Few seem to understand.
The RRG is a desperate effort to insure paragliding, now the ex-USHGA's cash cow.
U.S. hang gliding was doing fine until it decided to combine with parachuting (paragliding).
In 1986, there had been no paragliding fatalities in the USA. But an analysis of 218 paragliding accidents with 283 injuries in Germany, Austria and Switzerland between 1987 and 1989 revealed a rate of 34.9-percent (99) spinal injuries. Fifty-four of the 283 injuries resulted in permanent disability. This was a huge red flag that something was wrong with the sport of paragliding. It clearly showed us what to expect.

What-me-worry? - so then the geniuses at USHGA decided to merge with the American Paragliding Association in 1992.
Mark Shipman, MD, of the American Paragliding Association wrote in the first 1993 issue of APA Paragliding, "Four fatalities with less than 1000 participants represents a far greater fatality risk for paragliding than one finds in Europe. This figure is also far worse than for hang gliding."
Ten years later, in 2002, the global fatality total for paragliding had risen to at least 250.
Another ten years and global paragliding fatalities had exceeded all the hang gliding fatalities in history.

Every time there is a fatality, it means somebody fell out of the sky and hit hard on the ground - where people live.
Insurers are global and keep track of these things.
They develop liability risk algorithms and apply them to insurance rates.
The risk algorithm for hang gliding (much better) was different than the one for parachuting (much worse).
Then the idiots at USHGA decided to call hang gliding and paragliding "freeflight" and forced the insurers to average the two together - to the detriment of hang gliding.
The USHPA became a wrecking ball.
So much for hang gliding's excellently improved safety record.
And so much for your relatively cheap insurance rates.
Airframes matter.

- Form a national hang gliding association that doesn't try to insure parachuting sports -

[dhmartens]

You are going to need 5 flights each at 5 non-coastal flying sites. I would film each flight with 2 go pro's and provide the gps tracklog (3 second increments) and post to a forum. Outsourcing Indian instructors could rate you and provide your rating using H1-b and L-1 contractors at reduced rates, as a community consensus. You would receive a rating that PASA and the RRG would accept.

[Bob Kuczewski]

You are going to need 5 flights each at 5 non-coastal flying sites. I would film each flight with 2 go pro's and provide the gps tracklog (3 second increments) and post to a forum. Outsourcing Indian instructors could rate you and provide your rating using H1-b and L-1 contractors at reduced rates, as a community consensus. You would receive a rating that PASA and the RRG would accept.

I don't know about the outsourcing, but the video and GPS tracklogs are a novel idea!!!

You get today's "Thinking Out of the Box" award!!!     



P.S. At this time, we want to be able to demonstrate that our US Hawks ratings are every bit as good as USHPA ratings. The easiest way to do that is to ONLY issue ratings based on USHPA ratings or recognized equivalents. That's the path we're on because it's the shortest path to insurability that we can see.

[Bob Kuczewski]

If we get this train wreck back on the rails with the RRG effort will the rails take the train in the same direction?

From what I've seen of USHPA protecting the safety violators at Torrey, this is only "Train Wreck, Part 1".

[Bill Cummings]

Hang gliding pilots,
Should you decide to let your USHPA membership laps, save your membership card. The rating system at USHPA was set up when membership safety was the primary goal.
There was a time when our organization, through its monthly magazine publication, would give us detailed analysis of each accident.
When the accident report fell by the wayside we lost the best learning tool to protect ourselves from repeating the same accidents.

Several months before before the death of a teenage boy and his H5 "instructor," (give me a break.) - I had posted to the US Hawks website a lesson from towing history.
Had this post also been linked at the HG.org website or at the OZ Report Forum maybe the now departed H5 "instructor" would have paused to reconsider his procedures, had he read the post, and not let a known deadly accident repeat while he was flying.
Sadly HG.org scrubs any reference to the US Hawks website. I see that action as an impediment to advancing safety just like withholding reports at USHPA.
Not linking the warning at the OZ Report Forum was my own fault. There the post would have been allowed. However when I'm at the OZ Report I feel like I'm tiptoeing through a mine field of hair-trigger ban buttons while dress in a suicide vest

Unless USHPA makes radical changes to the rating system your expired card will still indicate your ability to fly new sites so that the local pilots won't assist you off of a site that will place you in harms way.

[brianscharp]

Had this post also been linked at the HG.org website or at the OZ Report Forum maybe the now departed H5 "instructor" would have paused to reconsider his procedures, had he read the post, and not let a known deadly accident repeat while he was flying.

Not sure he had any involvement with forums.

Now the biggest safety concern:
Depending on the type of towline you are using it may be heavy and descending abruptly from the pilot or it can be light and trail more straight behind you during mid turn. Pilot and passenger have died during this turning phase and all because they were surprised during a turn.

When step-towing I use a heaver length of rope at my end (maybe 20 feet) so that the towline will hang abruptly below me. This causes more drag but it is worth it.

What killed the pilot and passenger was the line was trailing behind and a sharp dip of a wing to turn back before the towline went tight again put the lowered wingtip down and under the trailing towline. The towline snagged the wing and was now on top of the previously dipped wing. When the rope went tight that was the beginning of the end.

The chance of this all happening faster would have been when turning back into the prevailing wind.

Many big lessons have been learned throughout our relatively short history of hang gliding.
The cost of this lesson was very high and I didn’t want the lesson to fade away with time only to be learned the hard way again.

[Bob Kuczewski]

Not sure he had any involvement with forums.

Another failure of U$HPA. In this day and age, it's an embarrassment to our sport that public communication between USHPA members - including critical safety information - has to rely on the tyrants who run Jack's living room or the Davis iron curtain.

USHPA's leadership would never support a USHPA forum because that would empower members to challenge them in an effective way. I believe one of the real reasons for my expulsion was that my annual Regional Director candidate statements were critical of USHPA leadership ... and they had to publish them in the national USHPA magazine every year. They really hated that.

[Bill Cummings]

You are going to need 5 flights each at 5 non-coastal flying sites. I would film each flight with 2 go pro's and provide the gps tracklog (3 second increments) and post to a forum. Outsourcing Indian instructors could rate you and provide your rating using H1-b and L-1 contractors at reduced rates, as a community consensus. You would receive a rating that PASA and the RRG would accept.

DHM, I really like the idea of video evidence and GPS track log verification. How about if the US Hawks set up a rating board (while seated in front of their computers,) to see that the new pilot is completing the recommended tasks to prove up on a rating? With an okay from the board the physical (actual) H4 observer, would then sign the new pilot off. All current SOP's would be checked off for each rating awarded according to the new pilots abilities. How about that? The idea may need some tweaking.

[Frank Colver]

When I inquired, several years ago, why they (USHPA) didn't publish any letters in the magazine (Airmail column) anymore, the answer was that they weren't getting letters. I replied that I had written several that weren't published.

Frank