US Hawks Hang Gliding Association

Lloyd's dropped 3rd party liability insurance in part because of the inclusion of paragliding and it's disastrous actuarial numbers.

A paraglider knocking over a mother and her baby carriage on a public beach says it all.
The USHGA Directors who chose to add this risk on top of existing hang gliding accidents and present it
to the insurance companies should have been tarred and feathered and run out of the sport.
Instead, paragliding was brought into the association without a membership vote and within a decade
had reached parity with hang gliding in influence.
A few years later, it dominated decision-making and hang glider pilots were absorbed into a new sport called "freeflight."
That was the end of the national hang gliding association in the United States.
So it went in almost all other countries.
It's not enough for hang glider pilots to whine and moan about this being the end of their sport.
They need to get up off their knees and once again form a strong national hang gliding association.

It’s no secret that I was never a fan of USHPA’s mandatory national insurance scheme. There were two basic reasons for that; I believed it will be detrimental to growing or even maintaining our sport and, The statements made that insurance would, “save free flight” and that over 200 sites nationally were “ar risk” were knowingly false - made to scare pilots into donating $2 Million to fund the insurance company run largely by USHPA’s “leaders”.

Sadly, as many believed would occur, our sport was and will continue to be irreparably harmed by this costly and grossly false scheme until it collapses entirely.

Individual instructors across the Country have ended their schools. Many large, well established flight schools that were previously profitable - for 20 years and more! - have closed their doors forever. Why? The burden of sky-high insurance premiums demanded by USHPA’s RRRG has proven too be wildly too expensive to justify continued operations.

Our sport is dying (unless we return the basics - Free Flight). USHPA in their myopic determination to maintain control of our sport, and thus their bureaucratic existence, has largely, in just one year, destroyed hang gliding instruction across the Country.

The only HG schools still in existence (Mission, Wallaby & Quest) are eventually going to fold under the burden of continued declining students with simultaneously increasing USHPA & RRRG fees & costs.

Owners of Cloud 9 in Northville Michigan, Lisa & Tracy Tillman are selling their entire school, lock, stock & barrel. Why? Tracy told me, “Insurance costs are ten times higher while providing one quarter of the coverage.”

Cloud 9 was the first PASA certified school in the Country. Tracy & Lisa have been active pilots from 1976 and at the BOD level of the sport, but their decades-long-earned admonitions and warnings were not heeded by USHPA leadership, who insisted on a focus on competition coverage funded by instructors and schools.

At the same time USHPA did nothing to rein-in the accident rate of PGs which remain extremely excessive. “At a greater rate than the Vietnam War causualty rate.” Tracy says. “No insurer will cover that kind of casualty or accident rate.”

If this trend continues, (and it can only accelerate) USHPA and it’s RRRG mandatory national insurance scheme will very shortly be the end themselves, if not HG manufacturing.

While the loss of USHPA is of little consequence IMHO, the destruction of HG schools will lead to the loss of HG manufacturing. And that will be the terrible, unintended (but foreseeable) result that has untold ramifications for future of our sport.

My advise: Buy as new a glider as you can. Buy a second for spare parts. Buy plenty of down tubes. And fly like there is no tomorrow.

Because for USHPA, there isn’t.

You may ask yourself, what can we do to save HG? Keep on flying. If you have the knowledge and skill and patience, and gear, teach new HG pilots to fly!

USHPA has made itself its own worst enemy. It has killed itself. But that doesn’t mean that HG is at an end... Only the bureaucracy (that is: USHPA) wants more than anything else to continue expanding itself...it will end. Hang gliding pilots individually will simply return to our roots, hopefully to re-grow and renew our sport just as we began it the first time 40 years ago.

Individuals will spring up to teach new student pilots and we’ll find new sites if necessary and continue to fly established sites where we can.

A post script to this story is that Lisa and Tracy Tillman are now teaching General Aviation “GA” and towing sailplanes at their home site in Michigan - profitably, without the demands of RRRG, PASA insurance and the bloated USHPA bureaucracy! Tracy tells me that there is still one 914 Dragonfly tug and numerous Hang Gliders for sale listed on Hang Gliding.org. Although he is wistful about the loss of Hang Gliding in the flatlands he is encouraged by his now well-established aviation instruction school...He too foresaw the collapse of USHPA and began preparations for his broader aviation activities years ago.

I’ve terminated my association with USHPA & RVHPA. My only interest remains to encourage hang gliding pilots and newcomers to pursue their individual passion for flight. USHPA & RVHPA are mis-managed, self-indulgent, bureaucracies intent on restricting the flight freedoms of non-members.

Where is your interest?

Dave Palmer

FiascoDave wrote:It’s no secret that I was never a fan of USHPA’s mandatory national insurance scheme. There were two basic reasons for that; I believed it will be detrimental to growing or even maintaining our sport and, The statements made that insurance would, “save free flight” and that over 200 sites nationally were “ar risk” were knowingly false - made to scare pilots into donating $2 Million to fund the insurance company run largely by USHPA’s “leaders”.

I think you're right on both counts. I think the insurance scam was cooked up to protect those who make money from the sport. I don't have a problem with anyone making money, and I've been very generous with my instructors during my training. I've purchased new equipment to help out manufacturers even when I knew where to get much cheaper used equipment. But the business tail is now wagging the entire sport of hang gliding through USHPA. It's become so corrupted by the business interests, that USHPA now does their bidding. My expulsion was just one example. The Torrey business dragged me through court for 4 months on charges that didn't stand up. I won the case and their request was denied. So they turned to USHPA with the same false charges and USHPA rubber stamped it.

FiascoDave wrote:Sadly, as many believed would occur, our sport was and will continue to be irreparably harmed by this costly and grossly false scheme until it collapses entirely.

Individual instructors across the Country have ended their schools. Many large, well established flight schools that were previously profitable - for 20 years and more! - have closed their doors forever. Why? The burden of sky-high insurance premiums demanded by USHPA’s RRRG has proven too be wildly too expensive to justify continued operations.

Yes, yes, and yes. USHPA could spend pennies on the dollar to have Tim Herr empower chapters with their local Recreational Use Statutes and related court cases. But that doesn't perpetuate USHPA's iron clad monopoly on the sport, so they push the unsustainable insurance option instead.

FiascoDave wrote:Where is your interest?

Right here supporting Recreational Hang Gliding.

Thanks for bringing your perspective. Let's spread the word and save hang gliding!!

Craig recently posted an insurance suggestion in the "Best Plan to Save Hang Gliding" topic:

Craig Muhonen wrote:H0, Craig Muhonen with respect, writes;
LLoyds of London, backed Hang Gliding 100% in the early 70's with insurance policies for "Air Framed, Flex Winged, Hang Gliders", and their dedicated pilots.
  :

Craig's post got me to thinking about insurance and the recreational land use statutes. In the past, I have always considered them to be mutually exclusive - you would only need one or the other. But what about insurance that is explicitly written to rely on the provisions of existing recreational land use statutes?

If the insurance policy were written such that it ONLY covered cases that were already covered by recreational land use statutes, then there would be very little exposure to risk for the insurer.

Wait a minute Bob. If the activities are already covered by recreational land use statutes, then why buy insurance?

Good question. The insurance covers the relatively small cost of going to court to assert the recreational land use statutes in any particular case. It also gives the landowner more comfort than simply telling them to read up on their state's recreational land use statutes.

OK, I have a Question: My Question might have been answered already by one of You, Forgive Me if I am being redundant by asking this Question, but: Has a Pilot ever caused harm or Damage to sday a spectators Property? I have never heard of this happening but then again what do I know?
I an see it now HOW ONE Day I will be forced to land by some Fighter PLane. Then a Police Person will ask me for My proof of Insurance.

In Alamogordo New Mexico a pilot doing loops, broke a wing tumbling, had a backup parachute malfunction, impacted on the edge of a resident’s roof, damaged the eave and siding, ending in the pilot’s death.
USHPA paid for the damages. However the pilot’s estate would also have been able to cover the claim.

Site insurance started out as an extra to cover competition, but in my opinion has never been needed, because of outdoor recreation laws.
I doubt Lloyd's of London would have insured USHGA pilots if the club was not a corporation. A question for the people who were there at the time, "was USHGA already a corporation before Lloyd's issued our policy?"

Wow, good question. i was one of the founders of USHGA and I can't answer that question.

I can look back at some of my old HG publications to see if there in an "inc" after the name or maybe my 1973 membership card will give a clue. It would have made sense to incorporate at the very beginning to protect members and officers of the org from liability.

Frank

Frank Colver wrote:Wow, good question. i was one of the founders of USHGA and I can't answer that question.

I can look back at some of my old HG publications to see if there in an "inc" after the name or maybe my 1973 membership card will give a clue.