[Bob Kuczewski]

Thanks to BobK, the US Hawks forum is the only place where real discussions about an independent future for hang gliding in the USA can appear without fear of alteration, termination, concealment, removal, mobbing, banning, obfuscation or direction by an outside authority.

Thanks Rick!! That's very kind and much appreciated. Let me say in return that the U.S. Hawks would be nothing without the enormous depth of knowledge, experience, and prestige that pilots like yourself bring to our organization. Jack and Davis (and clubs from coast to coast) have proven that it's not that difficult to set up a hang gliding forum. What makes us unique is the really great people we have contributing here at the U.S. Hawks. Thanks!!  

Jack Axaopoulos is anti matter to hang gliding and deserves high billing recognition for his actions.

I couldn't agree more. Jack has created a deep divide in the sport of hang gliding by literallly cutting off communications channels between various pilots at his whim. His action against Joe Faust was the last straw for me. Joe was being extremely diplomatic under the constant barrage of "Doug Marley". If anyone should have been banned, it should have been Doug Marley. But really, no one should have been banned at all. A few pilots were having a spirited disagreement. So what? They might have learned something from that interchange. But Jack stepped in and banned Joe claiming that Joe was "pissing off the membership" (Jack's words). First of all, where is that in the rules? Second, the so called "membership" seemed to be "pissing" themselves off. Joe was just calmly answering their questions. But here's the smoking gun again. Even if all of Jack's claims were true, why did Jack have to obliterate all references to "ushgrs.org" from his site? Wasn't it enough just to ban Joe? Wasn't that what Jack was claiming to be the problem ... moderating Joe?

The reality is that Jack Axaopoulos just didn't like Joe's USHGRS idea, and so he did his best to undermine it. Jack started by arguing against what Joe was doing (read the topic). When Jack couldn't win that argument, he did what he always does ... he banned Joe and locked the topic in the "basement". But he went one step further by obliterating all traces of "USHGRS.ORG" from hanggliding.org. That's the action that betrayed Jack's true intentions - Jack's smoking gun.

[Frank Colver]

Jack, in his bogus reply to me claimed that he didn't want his name on the USHGRS registry because he hadn't joined the org. He also said that dead pilots would be unhappy at being listed because they hadn't joined. Well he is right on the point that they and he hadn't joined USHGRS. They not only hadn't joined, they couldn't join if they wanted to. I can't join, nobody can join USHGRS because it is not an organization that has a membership. It is a registry of pilot proficiency ratings and can also issue ratings based on information about the pilot's flying (hence the listing of dead pilot's ratings).

Because USHGRS has listed your rating doesn't indicate that you have joined anything, so the involuntary thing is total bulls***. The only responsibility that USHGRS has, in listing everybody, is that they are correct with each person's information. Any person can correct any errors by contacting Joe Faust. If Jack's rating is incorrect he can contact Joe and correct it but because he is an HG pilot, with a USHPA rating (I assume), his requesting to not be listed at all is meaningless.

Frank (from beautiful downtown Kingman)

[Bob Kuczewski]

In Salem Massachusetts people watched silently as their friends and neighbors were taken away to be killed.

In Nazi Germany people watched silently as their friends and neighbors were taken away to be killed.

How many people have watched silently through cracked doors as others have been bullied, robbed, beaten, raped, and murdered throughout the history of mankind?

Everyone likes to think they would stand against injustice, but the reality is that very few will actually do so. That's what abusers of all ilk rely on.

Personally, I am disgusted to see how many people in the sport of hang gliding are allowing Jack Axoupolous to get away with what he's done to Joe Faust. They go on to post gleefully about all kinds of meaningless crap every day as if nothing has happened ... while a good friend of hang gliding has been cut away from many of his friends in the sport.

Few people are ever tested in a Nazi Germany situation where their lives are at stake. But then they don't need to be tested to that level of fear because they've already proven that they can't even stand up to a little internet bully like Jack Axoupolous.

The "sheeple" will come up with all kinds of excuses to justify their silence, but the bottom line is that they fear being cut away themselves as Joe had been. So they silently allow something to be done to others that they certainly wouldn't want done to them.

[Rick Masters]

                            
The HG Sheeple respond to BobK's accusations.                    A grateful sheeple praise their censor.

The future of hang gliding:

[Free]

Jack Axopoulous is committing a crime in my book. Tortuous interference?
Jack Axopoulous needs to be held accountable and pay the price for sabotaging a valuable service to thousands of hang glider pilots.
What that punishment is and how to go about it is my question to everyone.

On a personal level I'm thinking publicity. Show him for what a weaselly little creep he is.
Multiple headlines outlining the deception and cowardice of Jack Axopoulous. He wants to memory hole actions and good things for hang gliding and pilots.
Bad move there bunny boy. You can't hide in the matrix. An intergalactic subpoena can always find you. A subject line with your name in it lasts a lifetime.
Maybe you should reverse your ill thought out actions and reinstate Joe Faust with all the pages you childishly flushed down your toilet.
That's the first thing you should do.

Beyond individual action to call you out, Jack, I would like to see some organizational sanction or further legal action levied against you.
The sky is the limit in the court of public opinion.
Judge, jury and some form of punishment for your crimes against humanity.

You pretend to be all about promoting hang gliding but you do the opposite.

There are good people with a lot of talent that you have insulted.
You should not be allowed to get away with it.
Man up and correct this immediate injustice at once or face the wrath of your former peers.
2 cents

PS: Correct spelling of Jack's name for the headlines?

[Frank Colver]

Jack always says, as he did to me, that he has received PM's from members asking him to take this person or that person off the forum or to lock a subject. After he does what they have asked him to do, he then says he gets a lot of PM's thanking him. However, he never tallies these PM's for us or tells us who they are from.

I can guess that those PM's always come from the same few people, like Mark Forbes and some others who have an agenda to prevent certain subjects from being discussed.

It's like Trumps tax returns - I want to see Jack's PM's requesting that Joe F be banned. I bet we wouldn't be surprised at those names.

Frank

[Bob Kuczewski]

Jack Axoupolous is a fundamentally dishonest person.

His claim that I tried to commit "voter fraud" in the HGAA is a classic example. I openly stated that I would not run in that election if Scott accepted his nomination. Scott did accept, but Jack put me on the ballot anyway to intentionally split the vote between Scott and myself (since we agreed on nearly everything). I officilly asked Jack - AND I INCLUDED THE OPPOSING CANDIDATES IN MY MESSAGE - to correct it by either restarting the election without my name on the ballot or counting my votes toward Scott. How could it be "fraud" when I included the opposing candidates in the request? Jack had rigged the election by including me on the ballot, and then he accused me of "voter fraud" when I asked to have it corrected.

After Jack banned Scott and I from hanggliding.org, he posted a long message here: http://forum.hanggliding.org/viewtopic.php?t=19144

Jack's message included this:

If anyone has an issue with this, just walk out the door. Dont threaten it, dont announce it, just walk out. Any such political nonsense will be deleted. Just leave instead.

So he warned everyone to NOT protest, then he warned/admitted that any protests would be deleted. Then he posted this:

I really appreciate the flood of positive PM's. I expected only the people with an issue to PM and flame me. What a surprise when 100% of the PM's were positive instead

Gee, 100%? Would we even know if it weren't 100%? No, because Jack already admitted that he would delete anything in opposition. Did he really expect anything other than bootlicking with those kinds of threats hanging over everyone's heads?

It turns out, however, that several pilots (obviously not part of Jack's "100%") did try to rally support against Jack's abuse, but Jack locked the topics and buried them in the basement (just as he did with Frank's protests about Joe's ban). Jack claims that topics are buried in the basement through a voting process. So someone started a topic asking people to intentionally vote to bury it and to keep track of how many votes it took. Jack locked that topic with a stern warning to not try to figure out how many votes it took. I personally think there is no "magic bury number", and that Jack just buries a topic when he doesn't like it.

There are a number of reasons that the sport of hang gliding is in such a dismal state. I would say that Jack's near monopoly control of national communications is in the top 3 of those reasons. Jack has everyone afraid to speak their mind and yet people will still spend hours a day posting and growing Jack's site. Jack's predatory practice of changing people's posts and links (ushawks.org to loserville and ushgrs.org to involuntarylist) reveals his active campaign to control all hang gliding discussions. It's sad to see so many people going along with it so they can stay on the "in crowd" in Jack's "living room".

[Bob Kuczewski]

Jack Axopoulous is committing a crime in my book.
...
Maybe you [Jack] should reverse your ill thought out actions and reinstate Joe Faust with all the pages you childishly flushed down your toilet.
...
You should not be allowed to get away with it.
Man up and correct this immediate injustice at once or face the wrath of your former peers.

That's exactly what Jack should do.

That's actually the easiest way out for Jack on all of the damage he's done. But he won't because his ego has him pinned into a corner. Just as with USHPA, it would be easy for him to do a 180. All of these problems would melt away.

But Jack won't change course ... and neither will USHPA. It is sad. It would be easy to feel sorry for them if it weren't for the damage they've done to good people like Joe and many others.

[Bob Kuczewski]

Jack, in his bogus reply to me ...

And what, exactly, have you done in response to Jack's "bogus reply" Frank?

Please don't leave anything out.

[Bob Kuczewski]

This is one of the clearest reflections of Joe's banning (in Frank Colver's own words posted to hanggliding.org on September 23rd, 2018):

Sun Sep 23, 2018 10:53 pm
HG pioneer Joe Faust should not be banned from HG.org forum

If it hadn't been for Joe Faust publicizing the efforts of individual hang glider experimenters in the late 60's and early 70's and organizing the first ever hang gliding meet, May 23, 1971, we may all be doing something other than flying HG & PG now.

His latest effort to improve the HG world was to create a national registry for all hang rated pilots. This is so that they do not have to pay $150 / year to keep their ratings if they are flying sites that don't require insurance. If they don't pay up for three years all records of their hang ratings are gone forever. It's as if the pilot never flew a hang glider.

I have maintained my membership since the day I voted to create the USHGA which became USHPA. But in the 1990's i wasn't flying anymore so I joined for three years as "non- Pilot" for $30 instead of $100+. As soon as i realized that my H3 rating was gone I went back to full membership even though I didn't fly for a total of 36 years. When I started flying again I had to get an instructor to reinstate my rating. If you think I forgot how to fly a hang glider then check out the video of my recent flight at Point of the Mountain, in another topic on this forum.

Hang ratings are public information and anyone can make a list of pilots and their current rating that wants to do so. No body can close the public record! Everyone that Joe has the public information for is listed in the new national registry, so a record of their rating is not lost and has not expired. Kudos to Joe, but for that effort he was banned from this forum. 

Please everyone, write for Joe's reestablishment in this forum and let him continue his efforts to help you keep the record of your hang ratings permanently. After you are gone there will still be a place that says to everyone that you flew and had this rating. USHPA will not have any record after three years of your absence.

Frank Colver, USHPA #7 (current)

It was perfect. All Frank had to do was stick to that sinple clear message. But Jack threatened to ban Frank, and Frank backed down under Jack's pressure. There's no clearer way to say it.

Then all the others who also backed down (you know who you are) rallied around Frank so they could all make themselves feel better about abandoning Joe. They don't like to mention Joe anymore because it brings up their guilt. In fact, they have a vested interest in convincing themselves that Joe must have deserved it. That makes them feel much better about themselves.

Now they all make happy happy posts about happy happy topics under the watchful eye of their master Jack. Rick's graphic was almost perfect:

A Peek into Jack's Living Room / Coffee Shop

AllWorshipJack.jpg (25.11 KiB) Viewed 4810 times

You could get a PhD in psychology studying the dysfunctional sport of hanggliding.