[JoeF]

The air we breathe during hang gliding sessions

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Is the air clean? Does it contain gases or particulates that bring disease?

Each hang gliding site at a particular activity session has air in a certain condition.
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Are we helped or injured by the air we breathe during hang gliding sessions?
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[JoeF]

http://www.worldhangglidingassociation.org/SilicaAirs.html

[Bob Kuczewski]

The air we breathe during hang gliding sessions

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Is the air clean? Does it contain gases or particulates that bring disease?

I am inclined to believe that the air at Dockweiler is about as clean and safe as most of us will encounter anywhere in the Los Angeles area.

I have sometimes smelled cigarette smoke, cigar smoke, and even pot smoke from people on the beach. But imagine how much of that (and worse) is accumulated 1 mile inland ... 10 miles inland ... and further. A few million people do all kinds of things that might pollute their neighbors. A few million people collect all kind of things in their yards that could be giving off dusts and chemical compounds for them and their neighbors to breathe. And did I mention rats and bats and the "pesents" they leave for us?

There are many things to worry about in this world. What we might be breathing at Dockweiler (and most of our hang gliding sites) is pretty low on that list.

[Frank Colver]

I'm pasting into this reply the email reply i sent to Joe and others regarding this subject:

Joe,

I’m saddened by the thought of you not playing at Dockweiler anymore. I have so much enjoyed having you there, when I was there also.

I don’t know how much silica we could be breathing when we are gliding and walking there. The only thing in the air that I was aware I was breathing was the salty mist from the waves breaking on the beach. I wonder if there is a higher incidence of lung problems among the population that lives right on the CA beaches, as in Newport. Have you known of any studies of that question?

One time at my desert place the air looked like it was a light fog but the humidity was at 11%. I realized it was silica dust, probably from the dry shores of the Salton sea, many miles away. The next morning all flat surfaces outside and inside my house sparkled in the morning sun from the silica dust that had settled on them the day before. I must have breathed in a lot of silica sand that day.

From what I’ve read I think the fine diesel exhaust particulates pose a much greater lung threat than wind across the sand on the beaches. I also think that the high salt content of the beach sand would bind the fine particles, due to the moisture that the salt attracts and holds. Beach sand always seems clingy and sticky to me not something that would release any fine particles into the air. At the end of a day at Dockweiler my glasses are always coated with a moist salt film, not fine dust.

I don’t know how much pleasure we should give away, at our age, while worrying about the long term effects of the blowing sand on the beach. I probably don’t have many years left, sand or no sand. I hope to enjoy those years and I wish you would also be enjoying them with me.

Your long term buddy in hang gliding,
Frank

Here's another email reply I sent to Joe today:

Joe, one of the best things you can do for your lung health is leave the Pasadena area and move closer to the coast. I lived in Monrovia after I was married in the 1950’s. I realized that the air was unhealthy there, with all of the pollutants piling up against the mountains (Pasadena is similar) and I moved close to the coast. I’ve never regretted that move, 60 years ago, to cleaner air and more blue skies!

Frank


Adding to that last suggestion, how about this: Find a place to live in El Segundo (a very nice town despite it's name) and tow your soon to be short packed glider to Dockweiler behind a bicycle.

[Free]

Maybe the bird poo will encapsulate the silica shards so you can hack them back up before they can micro-slice your lung sacs too much.
Behind every dark cloud, there is a little sunshine.

Sorry for that..

It does take years for this to kill you. The bird poo might get you quicker.
What about all the human waste people are breathing in California cities?
I hear leprosy is making a good comeback there.
5-G and chemtrails. Oh, and I just heard this new study about fluoride.
Who would of thought that, hey maybe, those conspiracy guys were right all along?
I wonder what else they might be right about?

https://www.infowars.com/report-smartph ... y-allowed/
https://www.chicagotribune.com/investig ... story.html

[JoeF]

The air we breathe during XC will vary.
And the air we breathe sometimes clues the presence of thermals by odor, temperature, and particulates.

My lungs have been through many exposures of pollutants; thresholds may be being approached. Mild irritation now; maybe stronger irritation later! Each person has an individual record of exposure to pollutants. No two persons are identical on these matters.

Oz put the topic in "Off-Topic".

The air we breathe is a portion of the wind that gives us ease of launch and thermals to soar. The air we breathe during hang gliding sessions is core to hang gliding; without the air we breathe during hang gliding, we would die and not be able to continue hang gliding.

The air we breathe during hang gliding sessions can help one imagine some of what is happening to the air that affects our flights.

The air we breathe during hang gliding sessions may bring health to our days and weeks and years.
The air we breathe during hang gliding sessions may be far purer than the air we breathe when at home or at work in our livelihood occupations.
The air we breathe during hang gliding sessions may be held up for profound thanksgiving.

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Apparently the Pilots in Colorado are breathing particles of plastic. Do we need to start wearing those face masks like in the Asian folks do?

One day they will prove that we are all breathing material that gives us some kind of cancer. I'm trying to do my part to minimize that but I figure I'l be dead by then…

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dug-G9xVdVs

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So far:
=Silica
=Plastics
=Asbestos
=Pollen
=Industrial fumes, various chemicals
=Urban vehicle exhausts
=Agricultural pesticides
=Cattle scat-based gases and dusts
=Organic spores
=Dust from manufacturing processes
=Smoke from natural fires
=Smoke from artificial fires
=Soil dusts
=Human smoker's smoke (cigarettes, cigars, MJ, …)
=
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The air we breathe during hang gliding sessions might produce bronchitis affecting our participation in hang gliding.
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I wonder , if all that crap their duping into the air ; i wonder
if that's causing the huge increase in Autism ?

On a better note :
In 1980 , the air was so bad at CSS , that i couldn't see the
top of Crestline , (3500 vertical feet away) ; and now i can.
All those smog laws that were imposed on cars ; yep the air
is definitely, a bit clearer now.

Bille

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The death of Greg DeWolf, super instructor at Dockweiler, might be questioned.
Was his lung studied post-mortem? I watched his decline over the years.
He was breathing the suspect airs for very many years five days a week
for six or so hours per day. The exercise and hoped-for "good airs" might have
slowly degraded his lungs via silicosis; facts are not at hand and
may not have been investigated.

I sent query to Cyndia Z-K and Joe Greblo about the matter.

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https://climate.nasa.gov/quizzes/air-we-breathe-quiz/
It's a test

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It's the smallest things that get you:

https://www.cnn.com/2019/04/08/health/particle-pollution-study/index.html
https://www.anthropoceneinstitute.com/science/air/
https://www.who.int/air-pollution/news-and-events/how-air-pollution-is-destroying-our-health

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The air we breathe in is much cleaner than it was in the 70's, back before they "got the lead out".
The USA's coal-fired power plants that are still operating all have scrubbers, but many of them have now been replaced by power plants that are fueled by natural gas.
All industrial processes in the USA have strict regulations governing their solid, gaseous, and liquid discharges across-the-fence.

Citizens suspecting non-compliance are free to report activities to the authorities, without fear of retaliation.
Same is true of the internal whistle-blowers.

I've worked on many projects, and the money spent on controlling runoff, water treatment, exhaust gas cleanup, containment, and recycling is staggering.
I'm sad to hear of some having difficulties like silicosis which may have been influenced by long-term exposure to fine sand, etc.
The worst thing we can do is succumb to some politicians' pleads for trillions of our tax dollars to chase some AOC-Sandersish green label pipe dream.
It's ironic that some that have spent many hours pursuing an environmentally friendly activity such as hang gliding at the beach may have been harmed, when they would perhaps be healthier if they'd spent that same time at a power plant or other industrial site.

There's now a war on plastic. In the form of a straw, it was somehow evil.
Now equally evil is any plastic bottle containing water. If that same plastic bottle contains Coke, it's somehow ok?
The problem is not the material we call plastic.
The real problem is the people that are plastic.
Too many of these "plastic people" end up in Washington DC.
They try to tell us what to do and what not to say, while they do whatever they want and fly around in jets, protected by armed guards and special health-care plans, making millions on inside trades.

The air we breathe during our hang gliding sessions gives us the oxygen needed for sustaining our hang gliding; without that oxygen we would die and stop hang gliding.
The air we breathe during our hang gliding sessions is taken from the air that allows atmospheric hang gliding.
The air we breathe during our hang gliding sessions has temperature and pressure; both qualities affect the aerodynamics of our hang gliding.
Some of the air we breathe during our hang gliding probably has been in the lungs of some bird and in the lungs of some bat prior to our intake.