[Bob Kuczewski]

Five years ago today!!

Angela_Joe_Frank_Bob.jpg (361.78 KiB) Viewed 478 times

And I just got a delightful phone call from Joe and Angela.

[Bob Kuczewski]

I was just texting Chris with instructions about filling out his Dockweiler waiver and I noticed that the PDF currently shows the number of downloads as:

      Downloaded 589 times

That's pretty cool.     


P.S. While reading through this topic, I noticed the following post by Rick Masters from page 3 (Jul 31, 2017):

The US Hawks have established a legal precedent that marks the beginning of the end of the illegal U$HPA monopoly created by amateur sportsmen pretending to be totalitarian authoritarians on crack.
I said long ago that the way to deal with Bob is to sit down and discuss differences.
Whether you liked or disliked Bob was irrelevant.
That is really all that could be done.

Taking away Bob's RIGHT to fly hang gliders at Torrey Pines was a stupid overreach by U$HPA.
Such blunders take time to correct themselves and often result in unintended consequences.
The unintended consequence here is the eventual loss of the U$HPA's insurance monopoly on flying sites across the country.
This cynical corporate strategy was a fiction from the beginning, far outside the intent of the FAA, but it might have been able to continue, had the U$HPA Directors been less full of themselves and more open to criticism.
Once they began incorporating draconian banishment of hang glider pilots from hang gliding sites for anything but safety violations, their days were numbered.

If the U$HPA were a hang gliding organization, this would be, perhaps, unfortunate for the status quo.
But since the U$HPA has, unfortunately, become a parachuting organization with some hang gliders in it, it's okay because the status quo has mutated beyond recognition.
We need to start over.
We need a hang gliding organization in the United States that is dedicated to recreational hang gliding.
No tandem. No paragliders. No schools. Just people flying hang gliders for fun.
A hang gliding organization that uses the recreational liability laws now common in the USA to place liability on individual members and not connect them with the disaster of parachuting or the increased risk of commercial training or tandem profiteering or forcing continual growth.
The idea that all this added stuff is necessary - paragliding, schools, tandem, comps, growth - is a rationalization based on profit.
None of it is necessary for the future of hang gliding.
Hang gliding will persist as long as people strap high performance wings to their backs and jump off mountains.
It's a sport. Not a sustainable business model. Not a path to profit.*
It's driven by enthusiasts, not managers.

Someday Bob's courage and perseverance will be recognized by the hang gliding community as the trigger that freed them from creeping corporate bondage.
For now, my recognition will have to suffice.
Thanks, Bob.
Nice job!    
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* Please note that I am not against hang gliding schools, real tandem training, competitions or growth. They are simply beyond the scope and liability constraints of a recreational hang gliding association.

Well said Rick. Thank you.