[Rick Masters]

“Over and over, I've heard comments from PG pilots who are interested in HG as a crossover possibility, but put off by the attitude and posturing of some in the HG community. Such as Rick Masters and Rodger Hoyt. If you act like a bunch of arrogant, sneering elitists, you'll attract a few like-minded souls. The rest of the crowd is going to hang out with the cool kids, flying paragliders."
        --Mark Forbes
“Shocking PG statistics,” Sonoma Wings Forum, 26 Feb 2011, accessed 6 Jan 2014, < http://sonomawingsbb.yuku.com/topic/361 ... Statistics > (removed)

'Cool kids' can go on to become losers in later life, study finds
HARDEEP MATHARU Saturday 01 August 2015 The Independent (UK)
http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style ... 32348.html

    Being the "cool kid" might seem ideal at school but it can land you in difficulties later on in life, according to a new study.
    The work, "Whatever Happened to the Cool Kids?", was published in the journal Child Development by researchers at the University of Virginia, and looked at the lives of more than 180 teenagers in America over a decade.
    But the results might not be to the liking of those who want to rule the roost at their schools.
    According to the study, teenagers who tried to act cool and were popular during their younger years had a higher risk of experiencing problems as adults, including alcohol and drug abuse, and becoming involved in crime.
    So 'cool teens' - made popular in films by characters such as James Dean in Rebel Without a Cause and Rachel McAdams in Mean Girls - may go on to lose out.
    Professor Joseph Allen, professor of psychology at the University of Virginia, said: “It appears that while so-called cool teens’ behaviour might have been linked to early popularity, over time, these teens needed more and more extreme behaviours to try to appear cool, at least to a sub-group of other teens,” the Daily Mail reports.
    “So they became involved in more serious criminal behaviour and alcohol and drug use as adolescence progressed.
    “These previously cool teens appeared less competent – socially and otherwise – than their less cool peers by the time they reaches young adulthood.”
    The teenagers involved in the study where followed from the age of 13. Information was collected from them, as well as their parents and peers.

What Ever Happened to the “Cool” Kids? Long-Term Sequelae of Early Adolescent Pseudomature Behavior
Joseph P. Allen, Megan M. Schad, Barbara Oudekerk, and Joanna Chango - University of Virginia
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/cdev.12250/epdf

[Bob Kuczewski]

“Over and over, I've heard comments from PG pilots who are interested in HG as a crossover possibility, but put off by the attitude and posturing of some in the HG community. Such as Rick Masters and Rodger Hoyt. If you act like a bunch of arrogant, sneering elitists, you'll attract a few like-minded souls. The rest of the crowd is going to hang out with the cool kids, flying paragliders."
        --Mark Forbes
“Shocking PG statistics,” Sonoma Wings Forum, 26 Feb 2011, accessed 6 Jan 2014, < http://sonomawingsbb.yuku.com/topic/361 ... Statistics > (removed)

I wish I could say it's unbelievable to read words like that from Mark Forbes. Unfortunately ... it's all too believable.

Mark's "blame game" that PG pilots don't become hang gliding pilots because of Rick Masters and Rodger Hoyt is preposterous at best. They don't become hang gliding pilots because they're being told that they ARE the "cool kids" and that hang gliding is a dying sport.

[Rick Masters]

In a sane world, we might expect the USHPA Insurance Chairman to recognize that the horrible number of global paragliding fatalities - over 1,350 lost souls - were caused in large part by collapse and suggest to its members that hang gliding may have significant advantages in safety.

[Rick Masters]

RVHPA › < https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic ... ewcLfScCzw >
PG collapse identity?
1 post by 1 author

Mark G. Forbes
9/10/14

> Paraglider collapse is your local HD buddy Roger Hoyt, just so you know.
Ummmm.....no. Actually, I think "Paraglider Collapse" is Rick Masters,
an 80's-era pilot from the Owens Valley with a particular fetish
about paragliders. He's no longer a USHPA member, and hasn't been
for at least 15 years. (At any rate, he's not in the database,
which captures members since 1999) I don't know if he even flies
any more, but he was active in the sport back in the early days.

Rodger is his own separate reality, which is amusing in itself.

I think the real, fundamental problem is age. There's a certain
segment of our membership which seems to think that "if it weren't
for those darn paragliders", we'd all be young, immortal and
unregulated. From some past polls, there's a break-point at around
member number 50,000 which is when we started up a rating program
for paragliding. Opinion from before that point tends to be much
more opposed to PG, based on things like the name-change some
years ago, than opinions of later-joining members. From that
crowd, we still hear about how "they" have taken over "our"
association. This, despite the fact that our Articles clearly
state that we're about all forms of foot-launched, un-powered
flight. The early pioneers flew an amazing assortment of
things, some which did not look anything like hang gliders.

Amusing too, because in the very early days we wanted to be
a part of the Soaring Society of America (SSA), the national
body devoted to gliders and soaring flight. "We don't want
none o' them pot smokin' hippies in OUR club!" So Lloyd Licher,
an SSA board member (I think) at the time, went on to organize
USHGA as a separate association, with a structure pretty much
copied outright from SSA. Today, the pot smokin' hippies are
retired, and grumbling about "those guys". So turns the wheel....

Some years ago, I was standing on WR launch with a "crusty old
HG pilot" who was complaining about the state of the world. He
told me about how he'd devoted his life to finding new sites,
soaring new and different places, exploring the flying
possibilities. As a result, he was approaching 65 with no
regular job, no long-term relationship, few assets and a
future living on meager Social Security benefits. He resented
"all those paraglider pilots, with their new equipment, nice
cars, 401K plans and high-tech jobs", coming in and taking
advantage of all the hard work he'd put in, pioneering new
flying sites. I just nodded and agreed that it was a shame
they were taking such advantage of him.

Change is hard, and tradition is powerful. We face some of
the same challenges with mini-wings today. At USHPA, we
have chosen to offer mini-wing pilots a rating program,
because we think that we're better off engaging with them
and working on education about safe flying. To reject them
as "not like us" would not make them go away...they'll still
be out there flying, many times at the same sites "we" fly.
And "they" are "us"; not all, but a good portion of the
mini-wing pilots are also full-size PG pilots.

Don't spend too much mental energy on Internet trolls like
PGCollapse. He's in it for the thrill of trolling, and
you gain nothing by trying to engage with him constructively.
That's not what he's about.

MGF

This is the USHPA Insurance Chairman, defending the decision to allow parachuting into our national hang gliding organization and attacking any voice of reason decrying this fundamental and ruinous change. Since I like to post under my own name, in case anyone hasn't noticed, there may actually be a third person besides Rodger and myself who disagrees with this disastrous decision.

If hang glider pilots had any common sense, they'd ditch the USHPA pronto and form an alternative organization devoted to hang gliding. How can they tolerate this sanctimonious BS from an organization dominated by parachutists who supposedly represent them?

[Bob Kuczewski]

"Democracy is two wolves and a sheep voting on wha's for dinner."

What do you get when youu combine a hang gliding association with a golfer's association? A golfer's association.

What do you get when you combine a hang gliding association with a soccer association? A soccer association.

Hang gliding is a tiny sport. Without a specific "bill of rights" protecting hang gliding, it will eventually be at the mercy of paragliding within U$HPA.

[Rick Masters]

The Biwinguals

The Lone Ranger and Tonto found themselves surrounded by rampaging indians.
"Well, Tonto," said the Lone Ranger. "It looks like this is the end. We're surrounded."
Tonto raised an eyelid and smirked.
"What do you mean, 'we,' paleface"?

[dagobarbz]

"Cool" is subjective.
So is the term, "loser."

[SamKellner]

Fabiano Nahoum<<marusco>> sends:

"A speed glider takes off from Rio de Janeiro paragliding ramp on a day with howling 25 knot gusty winds and met his fate. Despite the ramp being closed for free-flying, speed gliders are not a part of the club and thus not regulated. He was advised not to go, but decided to ignore the advice of the very experienced instructors who were at the ramp and who had, just 20 minutes before, decided to hoist the Red Flag.

It's interesting to note that even though the small canopy of a speed glider features a much higher wing loading, that didn't prevent the strong collapse. Also, on a day like yesterday, with Northeast winds, he should have flown to the right of the ramp, to get away from ill venturi effects plus rotor from the huge mountain you can discern on the left of the video, which brings up the question of how are these speed gliders being taught about the air.

The Brazilian free-flight association has no business with speed flyers, and does not recognize this modality in its membership, but the media nonetheless has put everything in the same "crazy hang-gliders" tab and we are getting unfairly tarnished. I understand the USHPA has embraced speed-gliding, but do these guys have any idea about wind and meteorology?

This is the second death in 2 weeks in Rio, the first one being a wing suiter who jumped from Pedra da Gávea (808mts) and miscalculated the distance from the rock and never had a chance to open his chute. At least in that case he didn't use our ramp. Two sad and totally avoidable accidents.

Interesting to note that tandem hang-gliding flights were being done up to about 20 minutes before this accident and even though conditions were pretty radical, they all flew without a problem."