[Bob Kuczewski]

Bob, you already knew that I wasn't going to donate to the RRG so why the plea?

I'm sorry Frank. Our sport seems to have gone "through the looking glass", and it's hard for me to know what crazy thing is going to happen next. Please accept my apology for implying that you were considering backing this plan.

If Mark Forbes and I should both agree on anything, then it's about as uncontested as anything could be. I think contributing to Dockweiler would be a wonderful thing, and I think we should talk about how it might be done in a way that maximizes the benefit to the site. We should have that conference call as soon as possible.

Thanks again, and I'm again sorry if my message was out of line with any of our previous discussions.

[SamKellner]

Hawks,

How funny is this?
Forbes:

Don't wait for an accident to happen to say "I told you so". If there's a problem brewing, head it off before it costs us all a fortune. We need to own the problems, and deal with them.

http://ozreport.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=45823

The RRG funding has two parts; the capital campaign to provide its base funding, and annual premiums charged to USHPA, PASA, the Foundation and schools. The $2 million capital base should never be touched if things go even slightly ok. The annual premiums cover the operating costs. Right now those premiums total about $900,000 per year. USHPA is currently paying about $500,000 per year for insurance, and that was expected to go up to around $650,000 next year. That's what our dues increase was partly based on. The remainder comes from commercial insurance for schools and instructors teaching for hire, as well as from the Foundation policy (but that one's very small).

If things go well, here's the plan:
- We work on risk management and cut down the number of claims that are happening.
- We assign reasonable values to reserves for future claims.
- We take an aggressive approach to any claims by a participant (a pilot or student) that tries to sue in violation of their promise not to on our waiver.
- We promptly handle any legitimate claims to minimize expense and avoid unnecessary lawsuits and conflict.

With what we hope to earn as profits in the RRG, we pay off any loans as soon as we've accumulated enough capital surplus to get approval. We then retire any letters of credit, which are essentially loan guarantees backed by assets like the Foundation's investments, and the USHPA office building equity. Once we've accumulated equity to pay off LOCs and all the loans are paid off, then we can back off the premium rate that the RRG charges to USHPA and the schools to a level that sustains our expenses and earns a small profit. The RRG is required by law to be profitable, but we can use the profits to decrease premiums in future years.

This means that premiums will be high for a while, but if we all do our part to minimize risk and cut down the number of incidents and claims, we'll see the savings sooner. Our long term goal is to have a stable source of insurance for our sport, not to extract the maximum possible cash from it. It's never going to be "free"; we still have to pay for a reinsurance contract, and there are actuary, audit and legal expenses as well as fees for the management contract and all of the regulatory filings. Running an insurance company, even on a shoestring budget, still costs serious money. In the long term, we hope it will cost less than what we have been paying, and more importantly WE control it so it's not going to suddenly go away because of a decision by somebody outside of our sport.

Our premium rate is set by independent actuaries, who look at our history and project an estimate forward. Right now, our history looks lousy and our future premium rate is high. We're betting that we can beat that, and show a healthy profit for a few years. As we do that, the actuaries will re-compute their estimates each year. If our claims come down and we don't have huge costs, then the future premiums will decrease too. That will reduce the amount USHPA has to pay for insurance, and hence the cost that it has to pass on to members as dues. When and how much is unknown…it all depends on how well we do as a group to minimize accidents and claims.

It has always been the case, but I'm hoping that it will be more clear to everyone…this is OUR money we're spending, every time somebody screws up and gets hurt, or hurts somebody else. It's not some far-away insurance company. It's ALL OF US, and we should all understand that. If you see somebody about to do something dumb/sketchy/marginal…call them out on it! Their screw-up is going to cost YOU money. Take ownership! Don't wait for an accident to happen to say "I told you so". If there's a problem brewing, head it off before it costs us all a fortune. We need to own the problems, and deal with them. That's how we're going to save money on insurance.

MGF

[Rick Masters]

Don't wait for an accident to happen to say "I told you so". If there's a problem brewing, head it off before it costs us all a fortune. We need to own the problems, and deal with them.

Oh. Does that mean they'll finally get around to this? All I've heard from them so far is to "shut up."


https://web.archive.org/web/20120328044833/http://www.cometclones.com/mythology2011.htm

He's right about one thing.
"We" own the problems.
Or at least you USHPA hang glider pilots do.

Think tar baby.
"Tar baby has become short hand for a situation better avoided than confronted."
-- Urban Dictionary

Reminds me of my favorite tar baby joke:
The Lone Ranger and Tonto found themselves surrounded by hundreds of angry Indians.
"Well, it looks like we are in big trouble now, Tonto," said the Lone Ranger.
"What do you mean by 'we', paleface?" replied Tonto.

Form a national hang gliding association.

[Bob Kuczewski]

How funny is this?

It's pretty funny considering that they just expelled a guy who had complained about safety problems in February of 2010 (when he was a USHPA Director), and those same problems manifested again in July of 2011 to contribute to USHPA's loss of insurance earlier this year.

Here's the full email message that I sent with some highlighting added.

To: Dave Broyles <broyles.dave@gmail.com>
CC: Ken Baier <airjunkies@sbcglobal.net>,
    Mark Gaskill <airutah@hotmail.com>,
    Rob Sporrer <rob@paraglide.com>,
    Brad Hall <brad.reg3@gmail.com>,
    Rich Hass <richhass@comcast.net>,
    Rich Hass <richhass@mac.com>,
    Lisa Tate <lisa@lisatateglass.com>,
    Lisa Tate <lisa@soaringdreamsart.com>,
    Lisa Tate <lisa.tate@ushpa.aero>,
    Mark G. Forbes <mgforbes@mindspring.com>
Date: February 08, 2010, 04:03:10 PM

Hello Dave (cc Brad Hall, Rob Sporrer, Ken Baier, and the EC),

I was at Torrey Pines yesterday and I witnessed an incident. Rather than describe it myself, I'll just pass along what was posted on hanggliding.org this morning by another witness who I know was there...

     ------------------------------------------------------------------------
     Jason writes (http://www.hanggliding.org/viewtopic.php?t=15666):

     Witnessed an Incident yesterday- don't see the form on the USHPA
     website- and knowing Torrey---this will never be reported

     Sunday Feb 7
     While standing in the landing area talking to a friend, I hear him say
     "whats this guy doing"

     I look towards the ridge to see a paraglider pilot flying directly downwind
     low over the the PG set up area. The pilot then intiates a right hand turn,
     impacting two stationary hanggliders, and crashing between several others.

     After checking to see if everyone was ok and inspecting the gliders for
     damage (one of them had a bent washout tube) Bob, the local RD, asks the
     pilot who his instructor was and if he was on radio. Brad Geary immediately
     tells the pilot to "don't even talk"

     An immediate gag order was in place, no one knows who this pilot was, or
     who his instructor was. The pilot WAS on radio as evidenced by the radio
     strapped to his chest. And that he carried with him in his hand for close to
     15 minutes afterward
     ------------------------------------------------------------------------

I agree with Jason's description of this event, and I do not request any action be taken regarding the incident itself (unless it is found that the instructor on radio was willfully neglecting his or her duties to keep the student safe). We all understand how this can happen, and we can just to our best to minimize it.

But what does concern me is having a USHPA instructor tell a USHPA student to NOT reveal the name of his instructor to a Regional Director.

I certainly don't know all the legal requirements behind what a Director can ask, and what a student is required to give (I suspect it's zero). But we are supposed to be a self-regulated sport, and that means that our members (and particularly our instructors) are supposed to comply with standards of safety and accountability within our organization. If an instructor is telling a student to NOT reveal the name of his own instructor to an official within USHPA, that strikes me as a fairly severe violation of those standards.

There have been other postings to that topic, and I suggest that you skim through them. I posted two comments myself (which I have included below).

I am not sure what action should be taken at this time, but having USHPA instructors telling USHPA students to NOT reveal their own instructor's name after an incident is NOT something that USHPA can defend.

Bob Kuczewski
Regional Director - USHPA Region 3


===========================================================
Bob Kuczewski's posts to the topic:
===========================================================
I agree with Jason's original reporting of the incident, and it was very very fortunate that the pilot wasn't hurt. He only hit two of the hang gliders in a very very dense area, and it could have been much much worse.

I also agree with Jason's reporting of the subsequent discussion. I approached the pilot (who appeared to be a young student - late teens or early 20s) after everything had settled down. I asked who his instructor was. Immediately, Brad Geary inserted himself and told the pilot "Don't tell him".

Now, the incident itself was very minor, and I was sure that the student had done his best to avoid those hang gliders. So I really didn't feel the need to say much to the student or to ask any questions of the student. But I did think it was appropriate and prudent to at least have a discussion with the instructor to understand if proper safety procedures were being followed. I suspect that discussion would have been fairly brief, and I was hopeful that the discussion alone might raise the instructor's safety awareness.

But what turned a relatively minor situation into a pretty big deal was having one USHPA instructor telling a relatively new student (USHPA member?) not to even tell a Director who his instructor was. That put that young student in quite a bind. I could tell by the look in his eyes that he was caught in the middle, and that's why I didn't press the issue with him.

If USHPA is going to have any credibility in terms of our instructor program and our safety record, we cannot have instructors telling students that the name of their instructor is a secret. That's lunacy.

Now maybe Brad was worried that I might "turn them in" over the incident. That was not my intention. But even if it was, there are (or should be) mechanisms in place to keep all Directors (Bob Kuczewski or David Jebb) from abusing their power. We cannot use "fear" as an excuse to go down a road where we condone instructors telling students not to tell who their instructor is after an incident has happened - regardless of how major or minor.

But most of all, I am appalled that the instructor (whoever it was) did not have the integrity to step forward and be accountable for the situation. I suspect those actions would get an instructor fired at many good schools. The fact that this behavior is condoned at Torrey tells us a lot about how that site continues to be managed.

I am still considering how to best handle this matter...

Bob Kuczewski
Regional Director - USHPA Region 3

===========================================================
SlingBlade wrote:
     If this guy has students careening around the place all the time I would certainly think
     it cause for concern. If this student was a fluke then maybe it's the student not the instructor.

I think you're missing the point here. We all know that students can freeze and make poor decisions. I'm sure it's happened to many of us, and our goal should be to try to minimize these events through good skills training, good communication, and good training of our instructors. We all agree with that.

The problem here is having an instructor tell a student to NOT reveal the name of the instructor who was supposed to be on the radio monitoring the student's safety. No one is blaming the student at all.

The fact that the instructor himself didn't step forward is appalling to me. The fact that Brad Geary (whether he was *the* instructor or not) would tell a student to hide the name of his own instructor is even worse. What kind of an organization are we running here when students are told by USHPA instructors to hide the name of their USHPA instructor? That sounds more like what I would expect from a street gang than from a national pilots association. Could you imagine if an FAA instructor was telling a student (who had crashed) not to tell the name of the student's instructor to the FAA?

===========================================================