[Bob Kuczewski]

Speaking of ideas that didn't fly...

By the way, speaking of avatars, I liked your previous one much better. It looked like it was from an epic flight and it conveyed the beauty and scope of our sport.

This one with the paraglider seems like a poor substitute:

avatar_1136.png (2.23 KiB) Viewed 6280 times

I think the epic flight shot puts the focus where it should be ... on hang gliding and on your long and prestigious dedication to that sport.

[Rick Masters]

I liked your previous one much better. It looked like it was from an epic flight and it conveyed the beauty and scope of our sport.

Something like this? Start at Cerro Gordo. Go north.
Or if you were me, start at Mazourka, fly down to Cerro Gordo, turn around at 18k, take a picture and fly back home.

[Rick Masters]

https://web.archive.org/web/20090626130 ... ghtlog.htm
Flight Log of Rick Masters
Mazourka Peak #29 South Launch 9040' Inyo Range Owens Valley, Ca
Pacific Wings Racing Express Launching and flying alone, self-retrieve
Date Oct 1, 1987 Launch time 14:20 Landing 18:10
Duration 3 hr 50 min Distance 55 mi O&R Mazourka Cyn Rd
Wind T.O. SW 15 mph Wind Landing 0 Temp 20 deg f @18k
Clouds Occasional puff over Papoose Flats would disappear.
Solid line of shallow cumulus on Sierra
Quality Delightful. Mostly glass. Two sail inversions.
I flew alone. Excellent launch cycles. Climbed to 16,740' over Mazourka Peak. Headed south. 17,000 over the Betty Jumbo. 17,000' over New York Butte. Reached Cerro Gordo with 16,000. Climbed to 17,000'. (see photo above) Shot an entire roll of K64. Averaged 14,000' on return to Mazourka when the Sierra shadow killed the thermal lift. Glass-off at 18:00. Excellent no-wind landing near the Honda. Didn't drop the nose.
----------
My apologies to any Torrey rats I frightened.
Soaring parachutists take note of 1987 HG pilot's casual opinion of air quality.

[Bob Kuczewski]

87_HG_Rick flies Xpress_POVCerroGordo.jpg (33.99 KiB) Viewed 6242 times

Something like this? Start at Cerro Gordo. Go north.
Or if you were me, start at Mazourka, fly down to Cerro Gordo, turn around at 18k, take a picture and fly back home.

That's what I'm talking about!!!!!

Don't get dragged down and around by the sport of paragliding. Just promote the sport you know and love - hang gliding.

Tommy T. just announced a $100 prize for whoever can place the most "counter cards" promoting the sport of hang gliding. Let's get behind that idea and start posting pictures at the local gas station, the local 7/11, and your favorite Chinese restaurant all displaying counter cards advertising the sport of hang gliding.

Tommy said we can place the logo for our local clubs or even the US Hawks on those cards. These are positive things we can do for the sport of hang gliding so more people will someday have pictures like yours of themselves flying at 17 grand to look back on and to cherish.

[Rick Masters]

Don't get dragged down and around by the sport of paragliding. Just promote the sport you know and love - hang gliding.

Bob, the next time you see a bunch of paragliders flying around, I would like you to ask yourself how many of them might have become hang glider pilots had the USHGA not invited paragliding into our hang gliding association. Hang gliding is a better, safer sport and there is a reason why the numbers of hang glider pilots have dwindled since paragliding took over our our organization. That reason is that today's hang glider pilots accept paragliding as an equal form of freeflight. It's not. It's a very dangerous form of parachuting. I've counted nearly 1300 paragliders killed while free-paragliding. That's appalling. But few speak out and all of us have been dragged down because of it.

[Bob Kuczewski]

Don't get dragged down and around by the sport of paragliding. Just promote the sport you know and love - hang gliding.

Bob, the next time you see a bunch of paragliders flying around, I would like you to ask yourself how many of them might have become hang glider pilots had the USHGA not invited paragliding into our hang gliding association.

Rick, I know that probably better than anyone. Torrey Pines has been "ground zero" for the PG takeover, and they've turned the SDHGPA into an almost purely paragliding organization.

I'll share a story. In 2004 I was interested in getting back into hang gliding (I had dabbled with HG in 1978 and PG in 1990). So I went to Torrey Pines and found myself sitting at a table with David Jebb. I told him I was interested in hang gliding and then he asked me what I did for a living. I told him I was an engineer. Then he told me that "all the professional people are getting into paragliding" as if I would be swayed by his appeal to my snobbery. I was mostly disgusted, but I am sure that many in the San Diego paragliding scene got their start because of David Jebb's appeal to their egos.

It's clear to me that if paragliding didn't exist at all, then about 80% of those PG pilots would probably be HG pilots (I'm estimating a 20% washout because hang gliding can be more challenging to learn than paragliding ... especially at Torrey Pines). However, that's not what you asked. You asked what would have happened if USHGA hadn't invited paragliding into their association. I still think paragliding would have grown. It's my understanding that the national paragliding association was financially "on the ropes" when they joined USHGA, and that certainly helped them. But I believe they would have grown (maybe not quite as fast) even if they'd stayed on their own.

But here's what would have changed. If USHGA had stayed USHGA and the SDHGPA had stayed a hang gliding only club, then the paraglider pilots would have needed their own national association (which they did have) and their own local association (which they could have easily started). Those two PG clubs would certainly have petitioned the Torrey Pines Soaring Council for admission, and I believe it would have been hard to exclude them (and they certainly would deserve their own representation). So the Soaring Council would have had the two original HG representatives (one local and one national) as well as two new PG representatives (one local and one national). So the combined sports would have had 4 (FOUR) representatives. But by combining the clubs (locally and nationally) it turned out that no new seats (representatives) were created, and the two previously HG seats have become effectively PG seats because both the SDHGPA and USHPA have not cared enough about hang gliding to appoint a true hang gliding representative to that Council. The result is that there are ZERO dedicated hang gliding pilots on the Torrey Pines Soaring Council.

There's no doubt that paragliding has hurt the sport of hang gliding, and it will get worse as USHPA becomes more and more of a paragliding association. If hang gliding is going to survive, it is going to need its own voice.

[JoeF]

[JoeF]

US1504534.JPG (89.04 KiB) Viewed 6229 times

[Rick Masters]

8.5-Ton kite
Naruto City, Japan -- In 1936, kite lovers here constructed what they say was history's largest kite. It was made of 3,000 sheets of ligh [sic] paper, each sheet measuring about 16 by 20 inches. The assembled kite weighed 8.5 tons.

-- from the Daily Courier, Connellsville, PA., 1 Aug 1972, page 18.
-------------
My calculations
8.5 tons = 8.5 x 2000 pounds = 17,000 pounds
16 x 20 sheet of paper = 2 oz
8 sheets = 1 pound
3000 sheets = 3000 / 8 = 375 pounds of paper
weight of kite frame = 17,000 - 375 = 16,665 pounds
-------------
Conclusion: They call it Mitsubishi Heavy Industries for a reason.





FYI: The largest kite ever flown, has a total lifting area of 950 m² (10,225.7 ft²). When laid flat, it has a total area of 1019 m² (10,968.4 ft²). The kite measured 25.475 m (83 ft 7 in) long and 40 m (131ft 3 in) wide. The kite was made by Abdulrahman Al Farsi and Faris Al Farsi and flown at the Kuwait Hala Festival in Flag Square, Kuwait City, Kuwait on 15 February 2005. -- Guinness Book of World Records

[Bob Kuczewski]

8.5-Ton kite
   :
FYI: The largest kite ever flown, has a total lifting area of 950 m² (10,225.7 ft²). When laid flat, it has a total area of 1019 m² (10,968.4 ft²). The kite measured 25.475 m (83 ft 7 in) long and 40 m (131ft 3 in) wide. The kite was made by Abdulrahman Al Farsi and Faris Al Farsi and flown at the Kuwait Hala Festival in Flag Square, Kuwait City, Kuwait on 15 February 2005. -- Guinness Book of World Records

Do you know how much the Farsi/Farsi kite weighed? 8.5 tons seems like a lot and I'm wondering if there might have been a units mix-up in the 1972 article.

Edit:

OK, I decided to actually do my own homework and looked up the Kuwait kite at:

http://www.carnetdevol.org/actualite/koweit/kiteva.htm

Dimension : 42 m X 25 m - The height inside is a maximum of 7 metres
The actual kite flying is 900 sq m but in all it is 1050 sq meters and 4000 cubic metres - " The air inside the fabric has a mass of 5 tonnes
Weights : 200 kilos
Réalisation : The kite took 750 hours to make
Matérial : There are 360 internal cords using over 2.5 km of cord
The fabric is strengthened, making it what Peter Lynn calls superripstop with a further 2.5 km of cord.
2 500 sq metres of fabric is used

That's more like a quarter ton. Of course, that's not the Naruto kite, and it benefits from modern materials. So maybe ...