[JoeF]

All are welcome to let their Telluride hang gliding notes flow in this topic.
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Some teasing starts: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telluride,_Colorado

https://tellurideairforce.org/ Telluride Air Force (TAF)
https://www.facebook.com/groups/1088280214528533/

Some historic photos

“Captain” Jack Carey for a historic KOTO high-altitude remote broadcast in 1982

From: craig muhonen
Sent: Saturday, November 23, 2019 7:01 PM
Subject: 1973-4
Original TAF (Telluride Air Force): members: Joe Kray, Dennis Stenslien, Gary Gross, Clint Wolf, Robert St.Once, Greg Henzie, Don Dusatko, Jim Lincoln, Jim Guest, Jeff Campbell, Mitchell Stanfield, David Stanfield. TAF Administrator/Secretary - Christine Stanfield/Dusatko.
VIP Visiting Pilots: Bob Keeler, Rob Kells, Jack Schroeder, John Heiney, Dave Cronk, Dave Beardslee, Dan Racinelli, Steve Moyes.
VIP Guest: Col. Chuck Yeager
Special Guest : driver, carrier, launch specialist and shot buyer at the bar.... ha....Craig (munch) Muhonen
Might make for a good trivia pursuit question.

Wasn't sure where to post this.

http://www.energykitesystems.net/HGpilots/CraigPirazzi.html

Rainy, But Good, Telluride Hang Gliding Festival’s 25th Year © John Heiney
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Though Telluride was not mentioned in the early article,
there were Telluride HG happenings at the time:
https://www.nytimes.com/1973/09/01/archives/sky-surfing-an-ancient-dream-on-rise-in-us-200foothigh-float-sky.html
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Hang Glide over Telluride with John Heiney and Craig Pirazzi


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To explore: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/0B3m8yD-FNUSjfnhhaE5WZTFZRk9vVmhrVUx0REFUMnZpZGZRd1hsV3hSV2JCSTJLSVpkMHc
Telluride Airmans Rendezvous
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David Gibas, Dave Gibas, 1973 Story needs unfolding. Mother's obituary mentions her son David. Otto Member, S-SA Self-Soar Association. Not far from Telluride: https://www.newspapers.com/clip/18689616/the_tennessean/
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The Aeronauts; Hang Gliding Masters.

[Bob Kuczewski]

Thanks for the research Joe.

Here's an interesting note from Wikipedia page you linked:

In 1891, Telluride's L.L. Nunn joined forces with George Westinghouse to build the Ames Hydroelectric Generating Plant, an alternating current power plant, near Telluride. (Nunn's home can be found at the corner of Aspen and Columbia Streets; next door is the home he purchased for the "pinheads"[citation needed] to study hydro-electric engineering.) The plant supplied power to the Gold King Mine 3.5 miles away. This was the first successful demonstration of long-distance transmission of industrial-grade alternating current power and used two 100-hp Westinghouse alternators, one working as a generator producing 3,000 volt, 133 Hertz, single-phase AC, and the other used as an AC motor.[10] This hydroelectric AC power plant predated the Westinghouse plant at Niagara Falls by 4 years.[10] Nunn and his brother Paul built power plants in Colorado, Utah, Idaho, Montana, Mexico, and the Ontario Power plant at Niagara Falls on the Canadian side. Nunn developed a keen interest in education as part of his electrical power companies, and in conjunction with Cornell University built the Telluride House at Cornell in 1909 to educate promising students in electrical engineering. Later, Nunn along with Charles Walcott, started the non-profit Telluride Association. Nunn founded Deep Springs College in 1917. All of Nunn's educational endeavors are going strong today. Each year, the Telluride Tech Festival honors Nunn, inventor Nikola Tesla, and Westinghouse, along with current day technology and science leaders.

I wonder if that could be related to the same Nikola Tesla who's been recently active on the U.S. Hawks from "down under"?

[Bob Kuczewski]

From Joe's video:

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Luigi said:

The mission of the Telluride Air Force is to preserve the flying here in this area far long after we're just memories ... of those old guys that used to jump off the hills here.

[Bob Kuczewski]

Telluride Air Force

Luigi goes back a long way back with the club:

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[Craig Muhonen]

Thanks guys for continuing to bring forward the great story of the "early" flyers in Telluride and around the country, and their devotion to continually build and test the best "gliders" that they could. I was lucky enough to see first hand, an evolution of some of those gliders, from Bill Bennets tow kites in 1968, to the Torrance Beach flyers, David Cronk, Dick Eiper, Hefflinger in 1970, with the Cronkite and various other wings by Eiper, and his bamboo bomber, to all the Telluride Flyers of 1971 with their original "super" Rogallos, Sea Gulls, Chandells, wills Wings later on. As I drove and helped some of them launch from the mountain tops, I saw that evolution (in a very short period of time) from a kite, to a Rogallo, to truly magnificent soaring gliders. And I got to watch the evolution of some of my ski buddys into fearless, absolutely confident (not that they were not already) hang glider pilots. I could relate to them because I came from a flying family and learned to fly a fixed wing at a young age. It brings a smile to my face remembering all the fun we had living in "To-Hell-U-Ride", the town "without a belly ache" . Thanks again guys for keeping this original spirit that was happening in many places alive and well, and passing it on to a younger generation of pilots.

TY. Craig Muhonen

[Bob Kuczewski]

Aeronauts

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