[Bob Kuczewski]

I see that one of my greatest fears is about to be realized.

If you bring a bunch of people together who all want to work toward a common goal ... like maybe building a better hang gliding organization ... you'll likely find that those people (who agree on their common goal) will likely disagree on a bunch of other topics (paper or plastic?, rigid wing or flex?, Ginger or Mary Ann?). Given the large number of possible topics of disagreement, any group can be split along many many lines. In fact, it would be unusual to find a group that could not be split.

I've realized this from the day that I created the Torrey Hawks. We currently have over 200 members, and I know there are various pairs of people in that club who would not want to be in the same room with each other. So if we allowed ourselves to be diverted to any of those other topics, then we'd have gotten nowhere with regard to our primary purpose ("promoting and protecting the sport of Hang Gliding at the Torrey Pines Gliderport").

Now the interesting thing is that the people who oppose the formation of a new national organization (and I think you can take some guesses) would be very happy to see us dividing ourselves along political lines, religious lines, ethnic lines, or any other lines that will separate us. If we allow that to happen, then we won't accomplish the goal we intended - to create a better national hang gliding organization. That's exactly what some of the other national organizations (and forum operators) want.

So with those thoughts in mind, I'm going to ask everyone on this forum to try to focus on building a better national organization to represent hang gliding pilots and to generally promote the safe and fun practice of hang gliding. I don't mind side discussions in the off topic areas, and that's one of the benefits of being on this forum. I'm a big proponent of free speech. But please don't let disagreements over off topics destroy our ability to build a better organization on topic. That's all I'd like to ask.

Thanks for your consideration.

[TadEareckson]

Bob,

What's he afraid of?

Same thing every religious cult leader is - people with IQs of fifty or better. Scares 'em all shitless.

Sorry, we don't use that rulebook here.

You're never gonna be able to get me up at the only place I wanted to fly doing the only kind of flying I want to do. Maybe if I were twelve years old right now I'd have a glimmer of hope - but I'm not.

They're only mutually exclusive under an assumption of ignorance by that community.

Nobody ever got in trouble underestimating the intelligence of the hang glider pilot community. I've been watching things for a very long time and I know exactly what the lay of the land is. You don't put the lunatics in charge of the asylum and expect anything good to come out of it.

No one wants to get injured or killed in a towing accident.

But you can count the people in this sport who are smart enough to know how not to get killed in a towing CRASH (there's no such thing as a towing "accident") on one hand. And none of them are on the Towing Committee or controlling a flight park. As I've said, Zack's smart enough and I'm pouring everything I can into him and crossing my fingers for nothing to happen to him for a very long time. But I'd like to have a lot more eggs distributed in a lot more baskets. And let's not forget Larry West either. He's been staying in the conversation rather nicely lately too.

If they knew that THIS community was promoting standards that would help save them from injury or death, then they would surely be glad to come and be a part of THIS community.

THEY'RE NOT SMART ENOUGH. They bond with they're idiot instructors and there's NOTHING you can do once their brains are hardwired and that's a done deal by the third flight. Hell, even when they're not idiots they're screwed. I've had some very long conversations with some very intelligent people and it's almost impossible to make a dent once they've had a swig or two of the Kool-Aid.

So they're not mutually exclusive.

Correct (in theory).

But it will take effort to show that THIS community is the better choice in the long run.

The flight parks are idiot factories. We will never win that way. We need to use lawyers to DESTROY them - and USHGA. We've missed a couple of good opportunities with Jeremiah Thompson and Bill Priday. But if we're patient we'll get more ammo.

I guess Scott and I should consider it an honor to have special rules made up just for us.

Jack's a total moron. He's got both your names up on a sticky at the top of every page you visit on his site. You couldn't buy better advertising than he's providing you for free.

Lemme ask ya something... How long did it take you (and Scott) to and at what point did you figure out the guy was a stupid scumbag and why did you get involved with him in trying to form a new organization? I knew I was dealing with a severely bent pin the instant of our first exchange.

The web was designed to allow people to follow whatever interests them at the click of a button.

Your site is SATURATED with OBVIOUS SPAMMERS. KILL THEM!!! There isn't a card carrying bleeding heart anywhere in the ACLU that doesn't want to see all spammers staked to Fire Ant hills and smeared with honey. (If any of those erectile dysfunction remedies and penis enlargers were any good you could use me as an airport windsock pole by now. They're FAKES!!! ALL OF THEM!!! I may never do business with ANY of them EVER AGAIN!)

For the record, I'm happy to see Kite Strings have FIVE members or FIVE THOUSAND members.

If Kite Strings had five thousand members it wouldn't need five thousand members. We'd have won the war a long time ago. We could conquer the world with fifty - easy. We just need a critical mass of intelligence. Hell, we don't even need that - common sense would do the trick.

This is going to sound cold, but I believe people have a right to make their own choices.

So you wouldn't have a problem with me walking up behind you with a tire iron, harvesting your kidneys while you're still nice and warm, and making a tidy profit at the nearest hospital? 'Cause that's what people WILL DO and HAVE DONE if you let them make their own choices.

In something a bit more gray area... Does Bill Floyd have a right to hand his chute to Lois for a repack, hop on a borrowed glider and take off without checking the sidewires, and soak up a quarter million California taxpayer dollars to put him back together with most of his parts? How 'bout if he breaks his fall on a kid taking a snooze on the beach blanket after a hard couple of hours of sand castle building?

I don't want a "nanny state" where anyone is telling me what I can and can't do ... for my own good.

I want a nanny state telling you you're gotta drive on the right side of the road for two reasons. You might live and soak up another quarter million dollars of California tax dollars putting you back together with most of your parts and I might be driving on the right side of the road coming from the opposite direction.

I also want a nanny state telling you that if you enter a thermal with a whole bunch of gliders all turning clockwise you also hafta turn clockwise - for the same two reasons.

I want a nanny state telling you you can't buzz active Condor nests.

I don't want a nanny state telling you you can't loop your glider from 250 feet.

The sport of hang gliding would surely not exist if that thinking were carried to its logical extreme.

I'm not saying we need to ground everyone who exhibits a foible from time to time. I'm saying we need to constantly work to eliminate foibles. We'll never be able to eliminate foibles from individual pilots - ourselves included - but we can and must totally eliminate them from our policies, educational standards, and equipment.

There's something bred into all living things that urges them toward taking some degree of risk in their lives.

Taking risks solely for the sake of taking risks is STUPID. Lions and wolves avoid risk like the plague 'cause they understand that if they get kicked they're gonna die before they get better. Great White Sharks explode off the bottom, deliver devastating slashes to Elephant Seals, then back off and wait for them to go inert from blood loss 'cause they don't wanna get bit.

You know your port sidewire is iffy. You've got a good replacement and plenty of time to swap it out. But you don't 'cause you want the adrenalin kick that you'll get from maybe surviving the flight or the parachute deployment. That's STUPID. You should have your rating suspended or revoked.

You discover a bend near the bottom nico of your port sidewire during preflight on a really good day. It's a little iffy but you load test it and determine that it's an acceptable risk. So you fly a three hours, don't loop it at the end of the flight, and replace the wire Tuesday night. That's less/not stupid. But taking that calculated risk isn't doing anything for your enjoyment of the flight or increasing the probability that you'll get to do another one next weekend.

Doing a loop is ALWAYS riskier than not doing a loop. But doing a loop is cool. You do the loop 'cause it's cool - not 'cause it's risky. I've watched John Heiney not do loops 'cause it was a bit late in the morning and there was a bit of thermal activity starting up. And John Heiney is WAY cooler than I'll EVER be.

When John Heiney does a balloon drop he starts with BOTH hands on the basetube and the release lanyard in his teeth - just like the smart one point aerotow people do and total a**holes like Davis and Bo Hagewood don't.

Towing Aloft - 1998/01

I witnessed a tug pilot descend low over trees. His towline hit the trees and caught. His weak link broke but the bridle whipped around the towline and held it fast. The pilot was saved by the fact that the towline broke!

Not having weak links an BOTH ends of the bridle is risky, illegal, and TOTALLY fu**ing MORONIC. The only reason it's done is because tug drivers, Matt Taber, Tracy Tillman, and Dennis Pagen are TOTAL fu**ing MORONS. PERIOD. If you wanna take risks in Dragonflies then loop the goddam things.

The fundamental principle of economics (and evolution) is two words: "people choose".

Yeah. 'Cept people like Ann Frank tend to lose out on those sorts of deals.

And "people chose" to blanket a good chunk of the continent in DDT in the middle of the last century so the most magnificent race of the most magnificent bird this planet has ever produced (the Eastern Peregrine) ceased to exist before I ever got to see one. But, hey, there are still plenty of Starlings around 'cause they were evolutionarily superior in that environment. So phuck people who don't give rat's asses about anything choosing to piss all over anyone and anything they feel like so they can make quick short term unsustainable bucks.

And hopefully that Red-Tail at the top of this page means something more to you than a cool logo and you care enough about it to stop some asshole "choosing" to use it as target practice - as was a common, legal, and socially acceptable pastime when I was a kid. Can I get a position statement from you on this one?

So if I don't have the fundamental knowledge and I don't have the time to delve into the research, then I'll generally remain silent.

Stay engaged with me on SOMETHING. If we don't reach resolutions on issues we leave the field wide open to Davis, Jack, and deltaman.

I agree with most of that, but I'm not really able to contribute without more background in aerotowing.

You don't need ANY. The people who DO have the most background in aerotowing are total a**holes. If you can understand why a straight pin is better than a bent pin you're light-years ahead of any and all of them.

Having never towed, that makes me a novice (or worse!!).

Or better. It's always easier to work with a brain if you don't hafta start by shoveling fifty pounds of shitt out of it first.

A ten-year-old kid with an understanding of the difference between bubblegum in his mouth and bubblegum in the refrigerator coulda pulled the plug on the on the 1986/01/28 Challenger launch. But they didn't have any ten-year-old kids on the go / no go panel. They had managers pressuring engineers.

Here's most of what you need to know about aerotowing to be an infinitely more useful contributor to the issue than the total a**holes running it.

1. You need two hands to control a hang glider.

2. When a weak link blows the glider almost immediately starts going down.

3. Nobody ever got hurt on a glider going up.

4. A bent pin makes a really shitty lever.

5. A loop of line is more likely to slide off a steel rod if the rod doesn't get thicker as the end is approached.

6. A rope with a loose end being pulled through a ring under high tension doesn't always clear the ring.

Got that much? That's all you would've needed to know to keep alive a dozen AT glider pilots I can name you.

I've heard both sides of that debate, and I'm not sure which side wins.

THERE IS NO DEBATE. There are people like Steve Pearson, Mike Meier, and Rob Kells who know what they're doing and talking about and bozos like Red who don't. Nobody has ever been killed for adhering to the Wills Wing preflight procedure, a pretty good flock of them has for not. This is decades of practice and evidence versus Red's idiot totally unsubstantiated OPINION. I myself have blown a top sidewire by performing this test - and I showed it to Rob.

I'd like to see Red come and discuss it. Unfortunately, he hasn't been here in a while. And that's what worries me even more. If we don't have good healthy debates, then it's difficult to decide the better course.

http://www.hanggliding.org/viewtopic.php?t=13785

You were watching that discussion. I didn't know who you were back then but you rated one of my posts. (Thanks.) Red wasn't engaging me. He's wrong. Phuck him.

That's what's so sad about Jack and Davis banning people. They've killed the debates that might save lives.

They killed DISCUSSIONS - not just debates - that WOULD have saved people. Those Nazi scumbags have gotten people killed - no question whatsoever.

I grew up not far from Annapolis.

Where?

I had a "Tom Sawyer" childhood fishing, crabbing, and generally hanging out near the tributaries of the Chesapeake Bay.

My family moved there from Connecticut in '66. Spent many years sailing, kayaking, swimming, catching Water Snakes and Snapping Turtles, seeing zillions of crabs and beautiful flocks of Swans and Canvasbacks. Then everyone decided that what they really needed was McMansions, bulkheads, well fertilized and meticulously groomed lawns, shopping malls, high density developments, and tens of thousands of miles of asphalt. It's a ghost of what it was. And for some of the stuff - like Box Turtles, Kestrels, Quail, and Skunks - there's little to nothing even in the way of ghosts.

There's no problem with Warren's statement or his line of thinking.

Didn't say there was.

So I think you're reading something into Warren's statement that he didn't say.

Nope. Just sayin' that nobody knows what the hell he's talking about in aerotowing - which is a big port of entry to hang gliding - and we're maiming and killing a lot of people 'cause we're more concerned about no-stepper spot landings than we are about getting gliders safely back on the ground.

By the way, despite Dennis' current avatar, he's also a hang glider pilot...

I knew. And even if he weren't there's a lot of common ground on issues of towing and being connected to the wing at launch.

Warren,

Well sorry, there is disagreement because I'm a straight pin kinda guy that doesn't believe CO2 is anywhere near the biggest threat to life as we have always known it. I wonder, is this the first time you have been proven wrong?

You haven't proven me wrong. I said crowd, not individual. I'm sure there are Holocaust denying history professors and I know there are creationist biology teachers but two plus two equals four anyway and that's still the overwhelming consensus of the people best qualified to run those numbers on their laptops.

And, like I said earlier, I just had the hell proven wrong out of me on my top issue a bit over a day ago 'cause I wasn't plugging all the numbers into the equation. But I think I've got the equation properly readjusted and back under control now so my challenger and I are on the same page.

So you quit the Christian religion...

No. I never joined it. I was conscripted into it. If I had been born in some other part of the planet I'd have probably been conscripted into whatever the local One True Religion was. And hopefully I'd have reached the same conclusion about it before I started splashing acid into the faces of little girls walking to school.

...and joined the Malthusian religion of anthropogenic global warming instead?

In religion you trust what you really want to believe in and studiously ignore the numbers. In science you trust the numbers and studiously ignore what you really want to believe in. And there are A LOT of scientists who REALLY REALLY REALLY don't wanna believe what the numbers are adding up to but all the numbers keep adding up to the same thing. I'd be SO happy to believe in a god who wasn't the total asshole I got taught about and not believe the numbers but two plus two keeps coming up four.

What gave it away?

The geography was right and the guy's a Davis/Jack Show total asshole in good standing.

...if we were to agree that CO2 forces temperatures, how is CO2 credit trading going to fix it?

I don't think anything's gonna fix it.

The intelligent moral people who are horrified by what we're doing are majorly cutting back on the reproduction thing and leaving the knuckle draggers who don't give a rat's a** 'cause they're on their way to Eternal Paradise (and, anyway, we're gonna get a whole new planet upon the Second Coming any day now) will continue breeding like Australian bunnies and thus accelerate the shrinkage of average human brain size.

While they're waiting they're gonna pump and dig up and cut down anything that even looks like something they can set fire to and cook and eat everything that can't get out of the way fast enough until the whole planet looks like some combination of a West Virginian mountaintop removal operation and Haiti - and then mass starvation will kick in.

What was that adjective you used? Malthusian? Yeah. Look around. The more we slash and burn forests, strip topsoil, cook ecosystems, and destabilize the climate the faster we see that happening.

Bob,

Your last post got in ahead of this one so lemme drop it in as is and I'll get back to you.

[TadEareckson]

I see that one of my greatest fears is about to be realized.

My greatest fear - with respect to US Hawks - and Kite Strings - is that we get something wrong in the foundation which gets someone paralyzed from the neck down or killed. Everything else pales in comparison. If we're gonna do that we're wasting our time trying to build an alternative to USHGA. The foundation has to be based on science so we've gotta get the science right. If we can't do that then we have no business even advising other people how to fly.

Ginger or Mary Ann?

MARY ANN!!! OBVIOUSLY!!! Why are we even having this discussion? What's WRONG with you people?

Now the interesting thing is that the people who oppose the formation of a new national organization (and I think you can take some guesses) would be very happy to see us dividing ourselves along political lines...

We put two or more people together in an organization we got political issues and decisions we gotta make - whether we feel like it or not.

A couple of years ago noman - one off the org's rather majorer a**holes - started off a topic titled:

dont be a fag

with this lead post:

if you dont get off this computer today and go fly,YOU ARE A FAG!!!

go fly its beautiful outside and the clouds are calling you.

I was STUNNED. And then I was twenty times as stunned when a whole bunch of other org douchebags participated in the thread like ABSOLUTELY NOTHING had happened.

It wasn't until Post 16 that somebody FINALLY stepped in and did something just as I was lining up the crosshairs. And STILL the majority of the douchebags had no problem with what was going on within their chummy little Band Of Shits.

And I'm thinking, "Where's the 'moderator'?" Like nowhere.

But *I* get locked down for saying that your angle of attack goes up when your weak link blows? Well, actually I didn't get locked down until people started agreeing with me over Jack's stupidity.

And I gotta extrapolate and predict that the climate isn't much different here 'cause there are people here that were there and didn't step in and do anything.

I was in the sport nearly thirty years and knew of ZERO openly gay pilots. No way that would've been remotely possible even for three months in the Marine Corps (or the Moral Majority).

I first met Christy Huddle when she started getting into hang gliding around here close to 22 years ago. She's always been one of my favoritist people in hang gliding. She was flying Sandia Crest and as soon as she entered the conversation on the two meter everybody else - all of the Y chromosome persuasion - immediately switched to a predetermined secret frequency.

So if we're gonna build an organization we need some resolutions on what classes of people it's gonna be OK to treat like shitt. (I've previously expressed my own boundaries on this issue.)

...religious lines...

Religion has got ZERO place in aviation. Religion's a historically pathetic fallback option after you've totally exhausted all of your aviation options. When one of your leading edges is gone, your parachute is spun tightly around whatever's left of the underside of your wing, and your arms are totally immobilized by the nine Gs you're feeling go ahead and do whatever religion you feel like - just don't be real disappointed if you hit the asphalt instead of the stockpile of goose down in the back lot of the pillow factory.

If one of your buddies is lingering on for a few days after the feather prayer didn't work go ahead and try another pray for him if that floats your boat. I see people doing that all the time but I don't see any evidence of it doing any good. If you wanna do something useful then try to pry as many details of the crash as possible out of the flight park and witnesses before they're bought off or threatened, identify the factors which contributed to the chopper ride, and do what you can to minimize the possibility of a rerun ten months from now.

The early part of the tow is one of the most dangerous aspects of hang gliding. The primary reason it's one of the most dangerous aspects of hang gliding is 'cause hang glider towing evolved from a foundation of Skyting. And the reason Skyting is dangerous is 'cause it's a religion - not a science. It's a bunch of bogus assumptions that one clings to on the basis of faith while steadfastly ignoring all the feedback, crash data, logic, and common sense that tells you it's wrong.

...ethnic lines...

No Pygmies. It's enough of a bitch for the manufacturers to provide nice Aryan chicks with gliders that fit them well enough to launch half safely.

...or any other lines that will separate us.

IQ of fifty or better for glider pilots, forty for tug drivers. Better make that thirty and try to compensate or we'll have too many Dragonflies sitting idle in the hangars.

I don't mind side discussions in the off topic areas, and that's one of the benefits of being on this forum. I'm a big proponent of free speech. But please don't let disagreements over off topics destroy our ability to build a better organization on topic.

Politics, religion, evolution, biology, global warming... NONE OF THIS IS OFF TOPIC.

Politics and religion influence how we structure our organization and how we treat each other. Religion is the enemy of sound aviation. If you understand biology and evolution you understand how our sport has progressed in some areas and degenerated in others. Carbon dioxide and global warming have HUGE and direct influences on our sport. If you understand and can do the science and math in any discipline you are better equipped to do the science and math directly related to all aspects of hang gliding.

Forget Polar Bears and Emperor Penguins. As long as Pixar and DreamWorks can do computer animations of them for the big screen who gives a phlying phuck about them anyway, right?

We're pouring oil into our Hummers to drive three hours to our flying sites and carbon dioxide and water vapor are coming out the back. Carbon dioxide levels have been going steadily up ever since we figured out how to dig up coal and set fire to it. Carbon dioxide traps heat in the atmosphere. More carbon dioxide traps more heat in the atmosphere.

What we want for thermal flying - which is ASTOUNDINGLY COOL - is low humidity, no clouds (to start off with), a cold atmosphere, and a high dazzling sun to cook the ground until the air along it gets really hot, breaks off, and blasts up through the high contrast cold air.

The more that hot air is pumped up into and mixes with the upper stuff the warmer everything gets and the contrast and power of the thermals is reduced.

Plus you're entraining a lot of water vapor which goes up until it's cold enough to form clouds and that shuts off a lot of the ground heating and screws things up for you if it gets out of hand.

Periodically you wanna turn your side of the earth away from the sun so you can radiate all that built up heat out to Jupiter and get the ground and air nice and cold again to provide the contrast for some more no brainer thermals.

Carbon dioxide keeps it warmer in the daytime - which suppresses today's thermals - and it keeps it from radiating it off at night as well - which suppresses tomorrow's thermals.

Furthermore...

We also pour oil into our AirBuses and they burn it to get up to 35 thousand feet where they also spew carbon dioxide and water vapor out the back until they get to Chicago or London. It's cold at 35 thousand feet. So when you spew water vapor at the back it stops being water vapor and becomes ice crystals. And ice crystals at 35 thousand feet are called cirrus clouds. And thermal pilots really despise cirrus clouds.

In the daytime cirrus clouds trap what heat there is in the atmosphere below it and bounce a lot of the sunlight back into space so it doesn't hit the ground and get the thermal thing going. And at night it prevents heat from radiating off the ground and out of the atmosphere. Warmer at night, cooler during the day, global dimming - we're screwed.

On the morning of 2001/09/11 the hijackers had an outstandingly beautiful day with zilch cloud cover and humidity and outstanding visibility to facilitate flying planes into buildings. We responded by shooting ourselves in the feet and grounding everything that could carry people - including hang gliders and tugs.

During the grounding period the crew at Ridgely was going berserk 'cause the thermal conditions were unbelievably spectacular. The reason the thermal conditions were unbelievably spectacular was 'cause there were no Airbuses at 35 thousand feet laying down artificial cirrus clouds.

Side note... The net effect of these artificial cirrus clouds is that they're keeping us artificially cool. Think it's getting hotter now? Wait until we stop doing contrails.

Also makes you wonder what kind of effect this stuff is having on stuff that uses these thermals for something more than recreational purposes.

Evolution...

I've tried to explain to you that evolution - biological or mechanical - doesn't mean that everything just keeps getting more beautiful, more efficient, stronger, lighter, faster, cleaner, "better". Evolution just means CHANGE. Better is an individual arbitrary value judgment.

There isn't an eight-year-old kid alive - or anybody else for that matter (with the possible exception of Jeff Goldblum) who wants to hop in the time machine and go back to just AFTER the asteroid hit - all he's gonna see are a bunch of boring little rats that eventually evolved into more boring little rats and us.

You throw billions of tons of DDT into the system you don't get better Peregrines. You get NO Peregrines and lotsa Starlings. And the Starlings don't get "better" cause with the Peregrines all gone there's no downside to being fat, slow, and stupid.

We shoved sharp sticks into all the Saber-Toothed Tigers so we could get fat, slow, and stupid. We've lost a tennis ball's worth of brains since the last time the glaciers receded.

All two point aerotow releases were cheap and pretty damn good in 1991. By the end of that year the idiots at Wallaby had figured out how to make them four times as expensive and a hundred times more dangerous. Then Quest branched off and figured out how to make them even more expensive and dangerous. They evolved totally backwards 'cause they're success isn't determined by how many people they don't kill but by the skill of the marketer and the success he has at establishing and controlling a monopoly.

The fat, slow, and stupid pilot will not buy the 35 dollar safe and effective panic snap based Moyes release with the wire loop on the end that goes on the basetube. He's automatically gonna buy the 175 dollar spinnaker shackle based Quest release with the bicycle brake lever on the end that won't fit or work on the basetube so has to go on the downtube where it can't be gotten to.

He's gonna do that 'cause...

1. He figures five times as expensive, heavy, and complicated, five times as safe and effective.

2. His INSTRUCTOR (or, to the well trained eye, salesman) is using it on the tandem glider and obviously HE'S not gonna settle for second best.

3. Kills are so infrequent that he's not gonna be able to see the problems in action.

4. His Instructor is gonna make sure he doesn't know about the kills.

5. His Instructor is only offering the release he wants to sell.

6. His Instructor won't let him fly anything he gets from someone else.

This is how evolution works when you hit a planet with an asteroid, dump bioaccumulating poisons into ecosystems, turn a pair of Norway Rats loose on a Pacific island which serves as an albatross nesting colony, or sign Jim Rooney off as a tug pilot and tandem instructor.

So let's really understand the science and dynamics of evolution before we determine that unbridled personal freedom is just the ticket to advancement in aviation. That was Donnell's stated position over 31 years ago and it's been an over 31 year long unmitigated disaster. What's the saying about doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results?

Biology...

We spew carbon dioxide we cook ecosystems. We cook ecosystems we destroy diversity. We use raptors all the time as wind dummies and thermal markers. (And they use us as thermal markers.) We wipe out raptors we have harder times staying up.

And I don't know ANYBODY who's flight experience is negatively affected by flying in close proximity to raptors. (Well, the odd Wedge-Tailed Eagle - but that's somebody else's problem.) I'm really not interested all that much in flying in a sky with no vultures, Ospreys, Bald and Golden Eagles, Cooper's Hawks, Sharpies, Red-Shoulders, Red-Tails, Broad-Wings, Swainson's, Peregrines, Merlins, Kestrels, Chimney Swifts, and Ravens. I've done all of those, that's an important part of MY flying experience, and I don't want anybody else's goddam personal freedoms taking that away from me or anyone else.

So let's understand that these pieces of the science puzzle fit together and that when we get one part right the other parts get easier. Let's put the whole picture together and get things right this time - even if only one or two people are left when the smoke finally clears.

[Bob Kuczewski]

Sorry to stray from the topic, but I just saw this on the Oz Report forum ( http://ozreport.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=23080 ):

Joe Faust has misrepresented my position in private emails sent out to various others.

This means that I do not trust him to tell the truth.

Therefore other than my statement at the URL above (as follows) I disassociate myself from this effort:

My position: I have published articles about this issue before. March 8, 2011.

My position is that Seedwings Europe should not use the Seedwings trademark.

I don't use "Seedwings Europe" in the Oz Report (except when required by links).

Davis then repeated his attack on Joe:

Joe Faust continues his misrepresentations.

Therefore I continue not to trust him.

See my statements above.

Joe, it is really stupid to attack people who actually support your position.

Now I don't know Joe Faust all that well, but I cannot believe that he would misrepresent anything. I believe Joe is a student of the truth, and I believe he holds truth in a reverence that Davis cannot even comprehend.

Sorry for the interruption, but I didn't want to start another "Davis" topic, so I thought I'd squeeze it into this one.

[Free]

I believe Joe is a student of the truth, and I believe he holds truth in a reverence that Davis cannot even comprehend.

That's true and you didn't change the subject, Bob.
The comparison you bring up is but another example of Davis Straub's journalistic dishonesty.
Everything that Davis does is rationalized as to what is best for Davis and that doesn't allow him to have a clear moral or ethical stance on the ongoing commercial theft of the Seedwings trademark.

Davis Straub doesn't want to blow the possibility of income or free equipment from the corporate thieves in Europe. He has chosen to distance himself from any principaled stance by making a sleazy attack against Joe to keep himself positioned for possible future self interest. Pity anyone that gets in the way.

[TadEareckson]

If questions don't get answered and points don't get addressed then issues don't get resolved and the result is everybody-says-does-uses-sells-teaches-whatever-the-hell-he-wants aviation. USHGA's been doing a really excellent job of that for decades. So, remind me again, what's US Hawks supposed to be doing that's gonna allow me to make a recommendation without having to flip a coin first?

[Bob Kuczewski]

If questions don't get answered and points don't get addressed then issues don't get resolved and the result is everybody-says-does-uses-sells-teaches-whatever-the-hell-he-wants aviation. USHGA's been doing a really excellent job of that for decades. So, remind me again, what's US Hawks supposed to be doing that's gonna allow me to make a recommendation without having to flip a coin first?

Hi Tad,

I left home around 4:15am on Friday morning for a trip to the airport and a flight to San Diego (after getting to sleep around 2am). Then I spent most of a long day in airports and airplanes only to find that I'd left my cell phone at home. That left me disconnected from virtually everyone since I don't remember very many phone numbers any more (a side effect of cell phones that remember them for me). So I spent a good deal of my time over the last two days fixing that mess. And the time that I didn't spend on fixing my communication system was spent borrowing a glider and finally getting a short flight at Torrey today (thanks to John for loaning me his 205 Dream). Of course there were friends to visit and other arrangements to be made.

My point is that I haven't had a chance to read through everything that you've written in any detail. But even if I had the time, I'm not sure what you want me to do. I'm not going to make any kind of US Hawks policy based on any one person's views without doing my homework and getting lots of other opinions. That's what I think will make the US Hawks better than USHPA.

More importantly, everything you've written is archived here for the world to see. Every response I've given is also on display for the world to see. That's already much farther ahead than USHPA because there's no place where a USHPA member can challenge a USHPA President, Executive Director, or even Regional Directors and get any kind of a response. There are only a few Directors who post on hanggliding.org or the Oz Report. And they've been shielded from any tough questions (from people like you and I) by people like Davis and Jack who either unwittingly or maliciously have kept us from being able to ask public questions of those few Directors who do post.

The US Hawks is intended to be different because our leadership (whoever that may end up being) will be required to come to our public forum and answer questions from our members. Sometimes the answer will be "I don't know yet", and that's a legitimate answer. And if someone answers "I don't know" too often, then they'll be accountable for that when elections come around. Similarly, all decisions by all leaders will be published right here so everyone will know who is responsible for every decision. USHPA doesn't even come close to that.

Well, that's the best I can offer. If you feel that's not sufficiently different from what USHPA offers, then you can stick with USHPA, or found your own organization, or do something else. On the other hand, if you feel that your ideas will eventually stand the test of time in an open organization, then you're welcome to help us grow so that your ideas will have an organization of more than 10 people behind them.

I feel that my role is NOT to decide what kind of towing standards we set. My role is to build an organization that will have the right people and the right processes so that we make the right decisions with respect to towing standards and everything else in the organization. So I'm looking at general operating processes and not at specific standards. Rather than asking what towing standards we should have, I'd like to define a process for increasing our chances of producing good towing standards.

Now if your suggested process is "Just listen to Tad", then that's not going to fly here. That's exactly what USHPA already does. They listen to their own favorite people and disregard everyone else. That's exactly what we're not going to do. We're going to hold open discussions where everyone can participate. Then we're going to sift the wheat from the chaff and we're going to make public decisions on our course of action. If we make mistakes, then everyone will see it. That will provide the missing feedback so we can correct those mistakes and do better ... and better ... and better. The HGAA failed to provide that because they just banned people they didn't like. By doing so, they ensured that they could never get any better than the people who controlled the forum (mostly Jack).

Well, I hope that's enough for you to want to stay and help us build that kind of organization.

Sorry for the length and any redundancy.
Bob Kuczewski

[TadEareckson]

I left home around 4:15am on Friday...

Sorry if my little flare up was poorly timed. (I seem to have a knack for that sort of thing.)

But I've asked a lot of questions / raised a lot of points that have been gathering dust for a rather long time that don't require any great depth of technical knowledge to address.

For example, I've been waiting for sixteen days to hear what of any use we "learn" from driving a fully loaded supertanker up onto the rocks that the stupidest person ever to put a hand on a tiller didn't know six thousand years ago.

More recently, and temporarily under protection of the jet lag exemption... Does a hang glider pilot have the right/freedom to violate the conditions of his rating and/or universally recognized aviation procedures and partially kill himself and be clear of the quarter million dollar medical tab that society picks up to fix him?

But even if I had the time, I'm not sure what you want me to do.

What I want you - or ANYBODY in this organization to do - is challenge what I'm saying if you believe it to be wrong and discard or accept it based upon the arithmetic I show.

I'm not going to make any kind of US Hawks policy based on any one person's views...

I don't EVER base my actions on one person's freakin' VIEWS and I don't want ANYBODY participating in these discussions weighing in with a 'cause Tad sez. I want people doing their level bests to rip the crap out of every misplaced comma out of what Tad sez 'cause if there's a misplaced comma Tad wants to know about it, fix it, and do a little bit better next time. But I'd really appreciate it if they'd extend the same courtesy to a**holes like Davis, Jack, Tracy, and Head Trauma 'cause we're gonna make progress a lot faster that way.

And I just noticed...

You said "I'M not going to make any kind of US Hawks policy..."

So who gets to make policy around here?

Is US Hawks a dictatorship? Not sayin' that there aren't times and places for dictatorships but I'd just like to know what the rules are right now.

If we're gonna arbitrarily dictate policy... Based solely upon what's in our logbooks, shouldn't *I* be the one dictating towing policy?

I would also submit that NOT having a policy on something is the same as having a policy on something. As in Shane Smith was in full compliance with US Hawks towing policy - which you've dictated - when he killed himself with a Davis Release on 2011/01/15. And I'll tell ya in no uncertain terms: Shane would not have been so much as scratched under Kite Strings policy - no ifs, ands, or buts.

And now Shane Smith is one less potential member and supporter of US Hawks - and there's STILL no mechanism in either USHGA or US Hawks to keep the next Shane Smith from ceasing to be a potential contributor later this afternoon.

...and getting lots of other opinions.

If I was interested in dealing with somebody who wants to be making decisions based on lot of opinions I'd still be trying to talk to some totally useless moron like Mark Forbes. I need to be talking to people who can do their own thinking. At age fourteen my nephew - who's still never been around hang gliding beyond seeing my kite set up in the back yard - was light-years ahead of where the a**holes running this show will ever be.

So if you want opinions then talk to Head Trauma. He's got a million of them so he can seamlessly reverse positions whenever convenient and still be praised for his "keen intellect/knowledge of the issues when it comes to most things in general and hang gliding AT/Towing in particular."

But if you wanna do anything to make hang gliding less of a bloodbath than it's always been so that I can live long enough to give my nephew a green you figure out who the half dozen people are that can agree that two plus two equals four and talk to them and only them.

That's what I think will make the US Hawks better than USHPA.

USHGA's EXISTING aerotowing SOPs are lethally loopholed disasters but even they have some limits. For example - Lauren Tjaden and Bart Weghorst demonstrated conclusively that they were flying in flagrant violation of them when their bent pin Davis Releases locked up. But they were and are in full compliance with US Hawks SOPs. So US Hawks needs to get "as good as" before it starts talking "better than".

More importantly, everything you've written is archived here for the world to see.

ARCHIVED in the 1997/02 issue of Hang Gliding is this sentence from my letter to the editor:

To further address the danger of a primary release failure, a secondary weak link, of strength somewhere between significantly stronger than and double that of the primary, should be installed at the other end of the primary bridle.

(By "primary release failure" I specifically meant "bridle wrap", as is made clear in the context.)

Towing Aloft - 1998/01

I witnessed a tug pilot descend low over trees. His towline hit the trees and caught. His weak link broke but the bridle whipped around the towline and held it fast. The pilot was saved by the fact that the towline broke!

To this day I defy anyone to find anywhere a Dragonfly with a weak links on BOTH ends of the bridle - or the front end of the towline, like it says in USHGA's own regulations. So I'm not real impressed by the value of dusty old archives.

Every response I've given is also on display for the world to see.

Yeah. But from where I'm sitting the most important responses you've given are the ones you haven't given. I tend to listen very carefully to things that people aren't saying or including in fatality reports - like not hearing about ribbons along the runway when dust devils are drifting across it every five or ten minutes.

And if someone answers "I don't know" too often, then they'll be accountable for that when elections come around.

To, probably at best, be replaced by some other marginally willing volunteer elected on the basis of how well he gets along with people like Lauren, Bart, and Holger and won't know yet for another four years, et cetera. Real aviation isn't run by a representative democracy 'cause if it were the focus would be entirely on seat spacing and in-flight movies.

Well, that's the best I can offer.

No. The best you can offer is to respond to at least SOME of my questions - like I respond to ALL of yours. If taking a few laps at Torrey takes priority - fine, I can wait a while. Just recognize that somebody may die while we're trying to decide if Wilbur and Orville really knew what they were talking about and do what you can.

The success of democracy is very much dependent upon education. And if I and a few other scientists can't do anything to educate people who have a chance at absorbing anything then hang gliding will continue to operate as a dangerous religious cult for the rest of foreseeable civilization. And I'm guessing you brought me in here in no small part 'cause - with your aeronautical engineering credentials - you suspected that I knew what I was talking about.

...then you can stick with USHPA...

"STICK WITH" USHPA? Like the Jews in the Warsaw ghetto were "sticking with" the Nazi occupation? The only thing I'm sticking with is a very small number of individuals in hang gliding who have a pretty good idea which way up is. And we don't hesitate to confront each other when we have doubts about the firmness of foundations.

On the other hand, if you feel that your ideas will eventually stand the test of time in an open organization, then you're welcome to help us grow so that your ideas will have an organization of more than 10 people behind them.

1. These are not MY IDEAS. These are virtually all Sir Isaac Newton's ideas. And his "ideas" ceased being ideas when science confirmed them beyond the doubt of anybody beyond the kind of whack jobs that infest hang gliding.

2. They've already withstood the test of three centuries worth of time just fine, Otto and Wilbur and Orville applied and implemented them to allow people to get into the air with wings over one century ago, and I'm pretty fuckin' sick and tired of trying to defend them against a bunch of shitheaded pilots who never had a snowball's change in hell of understanding much beyond pointy end forward to begin with.

3. My expectations are pretty low so I'm thrilled to have an organization of four people mostly on the same page with Newtonian physics and if I can start recruiting a single aeronautical engineer over here I'll be even less miserable.

I feel that my role is NOT to decide what kind of towing standards we set.

I really haven't said anything about towing standards in at least my five previous posts. I think we've got WAY more fundamental issues to start ironing out first.

Rather than asking what towing standards we should have, I'd like to define a process for increasing our chances of producing good towing standards.

Over two years ago the USHGA Towing Committee Chairman (who, for what it's worth, is also a tow operator and airline pilot) asked ME for assistance in revising towing standards and I can tell you in no uncertain terms that I wrote the best fu**ing towing standards on the planet by stealing the best of everybody else's towing standards from all over the world, including USHGA's existing and the FAA's sailplaning, making a few tweaks, and putting them all together in a meticulously ordered fashion. And in those past couple of years not a single individual has been able to find so much as a single misplaced comma. So there's no freakin' "chances" or "producing" about it. It's DONE.

So maybe instead of US Hawks maintaining its current towing policy - the one that just slammed Shane in and killed him instantly - it should just go ahead and adopt mine. If history is any guide nobody will read or adhere to them anyway and there's nothing to stop the "organization" from modifying or throwing them out completely tomorrow. But at least if someone kills himself today we'd almost certainly be able to say he did it in clear violation of US Hawks policy and establish some credibility with a few of the horrified onlookers.

Now if your suggested process is "Just listen to Tad", then that's not going to fly here.

Tad Eareckson - 2011/02/24

We don't (shouldn't) use experts for advice. I'm probably the world's top expert on hang glider towing - which ain't saying much. I don't want people "taking my advice". I want them to understand the physics. Then they understand that the physics has been the king all along and always will be and they figure out how to reach mutually acceptable understandings - just like in REAL aviation.

I don't think there's ANY danger WHATSOEVER of anybody "just listening to Tad" 'cause if he did he'd be hearing Tad say quite clearly "DON'T JUST LISTEN TO TAD." (Brings to mind another "Life Of Brian" moment.) But if nobody's gonna do his fuckin' homework then, yeah, go ahead and just listen to Tad 'cause:

Bobb Loper - 2010/09/16

Tad is not uneducated. He has probably spent as much time as any pilot studying safety issues relative to platform towing.

I don't know his rate and it does not matter. I have read some of his comments on safety links and from my experience, he is right on money - maybe a little obsessive on safety - but that is not bad. If you go look up membership in USHPA, you will not find my name either.

even tow operators who really don't like me very much recognize that I've done MINE.

They listen to their own favorite people and disregard everyone else.

They ARE their own favorite people. Matt and Tracy are on the Towing Committee.

We're going to hold open discussions where everyone can participate.

1. Yeah, that's what I've been trying to get going here for the past month but so far about the only consensus we seem to have achieved is that a bent pin is probably a bad idea - something that I got out of the way in a tenth of a second a decade and a half ago. How many more centuries is it gonna take to reach an agreement that:

Dynamic Flight - 2005

The purpose of a weak link is solely to prevent the tow force from increasing to a point that the glider can be stressed close to or beyond its structural limits.

2. Is an open discussion gonna include comments like:

Sam Kellner - 2010/03/28

Yeah, I don't even read all of those long winded "explanations".

or

Butch Pritchett - 2010/04/02

Tad that turd is getting back in the punch bowl.

in keeping with unbridled free speech principles?

Then we're going to sift the wheat from the chaff and we're going to make public decisions on our course of action.

Tad Eareckson - 2011/02/21

They're done. They're excellent. They've been gathering dust for two years over at:

http://www.energykitesystems.net/Lift/h ... index.html

People here have had twenty days since I posted that link to review the material. To date the number of comments that have been posted has been zero. In forty days I would extrapolate that there should be twice as many comments. This deluge is consistent with what I've been getting since I made them available to USHGA and publicly over two years ago. Maybe we should do it like in the real world and establish a cutoff date.

I propose last Tuesday and, since zero percent of the zero comments have been negative, move that they be incorporated as is - subject to revision at any point anybody who gives half a phlying phuck finds a misplaced comma and raises the issue.

The HGAA failed to provide that because they just banned people they didn't like.

If you look at the recent traffic at Kite Strings you'll see Mike Lake presenting some evidence that blew a huge hole in my understanding of the physics of towing. It was a huge embarrassment to me. And he gave me some wiggle room to allow me to save face.

I didn't take it. If he was right I was wrong and science has gotta take precedence over egos. So I tried to understand what I had missed and scientifically explain what was going on. I later realized that that explanation really didn't hold water and, fortunately, new evidence came up that left the initial theory pretty solid.

We need science running this show and scientists implementing and adjusting policy regardless of whom one does or doesn't like. We have no need whatsoever of input from a**holes who can't be bothered to even read eight sentences worth of 'long winded "explanations"'. And scientists tend to like - or at least respect - other scientists who get things right.

Well, I hope that's enough for you to want to stay and help us build that kind of organization.

I wanna help any individual or organization that wants to get things right or even just better. But if I don't get questions answered and points addressed to the best of people's ability I'm probably just wasting yet another decade of my life. Right now my nephew probably isn't getting any younger, I'm DEFINITELY not getting any younger, and Shane DEFINITELY isn't getting any older.

Sorry for the length and any redundancy.

In discussing serious issues length itself is usually a good thing and tends to beat the crap outta shortth and redundancy isn't necessarily a bad thing.

In aviation...

Luen Miller - 1997/06

Our family had a close friend who piloted B-29's in WW II and afterward, then worked for NASA. He was well acquainted with the space program and the risk involved in flying, and ways to minimize it. I once asked him if he thought going into space was really that dangerous. This was back in the mid 1960's when the Gemini program was in full swing, long before Challenger, even before Apollo I. He said, "Well, they have backup systems for the backup systems for the backup systems, and when they stop doing that, people are going to die."

...redundancy is something we generally really wanna be shooting for. But we gotta at least start out with dundancy.

[Bob Kuczewski]

Hi Tad,

I'm in San Diego this week so my goal is to spend more time flying and less time typing for now. We had a nice "Second Sunday" fly-in yesterday. The winds weren't great and there wasn't much hang gliding for much of the day. But it turned on in the last few hours and I got about 45 minutes on the ridge in great lift.

For example, I've been waiting for sixteen days to hear what of any use we "learn" from driving a fully loaded supertanker up onto the rocks that the stupidest person ever to put a hand on a tiller didn't know six thousand years ago.

Without reviewing the topic, I think we've learned we need people at the helm who are better than "the stupidest person ever to put a hand on a tiller".

More recently, and temporarily under protection of the jet lag exemption... Does a hang glider pilot have the right/freedom to violate the conditions of his rating and/or universally recognized aviation procedures and partially kill himself and be clear of the quarter million dollar medical tab that society picks up to fix him?

My short answer is that I think we (society) should provide lots of information about what we feel is safe and what we feel isn't. That information should be readily available to everyone. But I don't think society should be picking up the tabs for nearly as much as we do. We've become a "nanny state" and we haven't figured out yet that we (as a society) can not now (nor never could) afford to provide the best possible care for everyone who does something stupid. There are far too many stupid people alive these days for that to be economically feasible. And I'm not necessarily exempting myself from that pool.

But even if I had the time, I'm not sure what you want me to do.

What I want you - or ANYBODY in this organization to do - is challenge what I'm saying if you believe it to be wrong and discard or accept it based upon the arithmetic I show.

I may just not feel qualified. You may say I'm "qualified", but despite what you might hear, I try to research things thoroughly before I take a stand. Take the Seedwings topic, for example. I have a lot of faith and respect for Joe, and so I'm inclined to believe what he says. But at the same time, I feel it's my duty to inquire from the other side before I take a stand on that one. So I've written directly to the Seedwings Europe people asking their position. We'll see how it turns out. My point is that when there's a disagreement, I feel I should do my due diligence to hear both sides. If you can point to someone who takes the other side and bring them here for a debate, that will certainly help me feel more confident that I know what's going on.

I'm not going to make any kind of US Hawks policy based on any one person's views...

I don't EVER base my actions on one person's freakin' VIEWS and I don't want ANYBODY participating in these discussions weighing in with a 'cause Tad sez. I want people doing their level bests to rip the crap out of every misplaced comma out of what Tad sez 'cause if there's a misplaced comma Tad wants to know about it, fix it, and do a little bit better next time.

I agree completely. The problem with this forum now (and an even bigger problem with your new forum) is that there aren't enough people on here to get that kind of discussion. I just don't know enough (and maybe don't have enough need to know enough) to do that for you.

And I just noticed...

You said "I'M not going to make any kind of US Hawks policy..."

So who gets to make policy around here?

Is US Hawks a dictatorship? Not sayin' that there aren't times and places for dictatorships but I'd just like to know what the rules are right now.

If we're gonna arbitrarily dictate policy... Based solely upon what's in our logbooks, shouldn't *I* be the one dictating towing policy?

Very good questions, and I don't know the answer yet. Right now, I'd say that I make all the policy decisions. But I'd like to migrate that to something better. I tried to do that right out of the gates with the HGAA and it quickly became a power grab by Jack Axaopoulos. He controlled the web site, and he pulled the strings on several of his puppets. The result has been a dead-end effort. So I think we'll need to come up with a "constitution" to keep that from happening again before I hand over power of the US Hawks to an unruly mob.

The big question that will determine a lot of our structure is what do we want this organization to be? Will it be a "political party" for hang gliding interests in an increasingly paragliding world? Will it be an advisory body for hang gliding safety? Will it be an independent organization providing ratings and insurance? Will it be a bunch of outcast crackpots talking only to themselves? Those are the hard questions, and I think the answers to your questions will depend on where we think we can go. Personally, I would like it to be an alternate (and better) national hang gliding organization. But "better" has many dimensions, and we may agree on some and disagree on others.

I'd like to answer more of your post now, but I've got a friend here who want's to get on the road to Torrey. So I'm going to cut it short for now. I don't mind being reminded in the future ... because it may take me a while.

Thanks for writing.

[Bob Kuczewski]

Well, I'm back from Torrey with a little time on my hands ...

I've re-read your message again, and I think I agree with much of what you write. But I'm trying to figure out what to do about it. What do you want me to do about it?

At this point, we haven't even built the foundation of this organization. So I don't think we're ready to adopt anything yet. Maybe I'm wrong?

But that did get me to thinking about how the Internet was formed. Much of it was done through RFC's which stands for "Request For Comments" (check Wikipedia or other sources if you're not familiar with them). In other words, the documents that ended up being the foundation of the Internet started out as "here's a proposal, what do you guys think?" kinds of messages. Any documents that withstood the test of time became widely adopted and eventually became recognized as standards.

Given that we (US Hawks) have no authority at all, I think that's a reasonable way to proceed. With the RFC system, new RFC's were simply added to a body of knowledge so they became concrete and well-known. People could refer to them as RFC xyz and everyone would know what they're talking about. I think we could do the same thing under the "Building the US Hawks" Forum. Start an "RFC" and give it a title. Call it something like "Request for Comments: Proposed US Hawks Towing Policy". Publish it in an organized manner so people can find their way through it. If you do that, then I promise I'll read it and post my comments. If you write a lot, then It may take me a while, but I promise you I'll try to work my way through it. Is that fair?

Finally, I hope you don't mind this comment, but I think it might help you. I would guess that 10% of all people are highly offended by foul language. I'd guess that another 40% are moderately offended. And I'd guess that of those 50% (highly + moderately), they all tend to be dismissive of people who use that language. Now if you really and truly want to change things, then you've got to realize that you're only hurting your own credibility with about 50% of the people for something as simple as your choice in words. Is that a smart trade? No. Now I can imagine a response that says "people shouldn't be offended", or "people who are offended don't matter". But whether that's true or not, it doesn't help any future Shane's to have anyone "turned off" or "put off" by your language. So I'm asking you to think about whether it's more important for you to build the support to actually make a change or if it's more important to spit out a bunch of cuss words that lose a good percentage of your potential audience. Please think about it, and put your words where your priorities are.

Thanks again for posting.

Bob Kuczewski