[Bill Cummings]

Hello Captain Ron,
At one point my low temperature cut off for snowmobile towing was 0
but quickly moved to 15 degrees. A few years of that silliness and 20
degrees. For the last 20 years 50 degrees is the new low.
But a much better idea than flying at 20 degrees is to make a stiff
brandy, pull a chair up near the living room fire place, and pound
your ten toes flat with a hammer.

[Craig Muhonen]

A Parody

. Ptera here, .. “.ok, you guys over there at Torrey, take a day off...sit back, with a beer or a soda, and I'll show ya how this gliding thing is done, I've had a "few years" to figure it out. You have only 150 years of practice, and some of you are doing it all wrong..ha. You hang glider guys can fly with me because it looks like you have some semblance of a wing, and you look like you have taken a page outta' my book, about your hands and body being "directly" connected to your wings, and flying with your head into the wind. Iv'e been watching your progress on developing your “wings”, and I like them. You have come far in a short time, and your minimalist approach has served you well. It took me forever to teach my offspring how to fly, it's so hard, but they mastered it well. Your wings seem sturdy enough for the turbulent air we have to fly in, and they fold up nicely, when you don't need them. Maybe, just maybe, you can keep up with me.

When you "other" guys, with all the strings and “nylon”, catch up in about 100 years, come find me, we'll talk, because as it looks from here to me, your “wings” cannot “penetrate” the air good enough to fly “fast” in a straight line , and I've seen them "fold up", at the most inopportune times...ouch. “Flying fast” is what its all about. And what's up with "stuffing" your wing into a "sack", it wrinkles it, and it gets mildewed, ...but what do I know?

As far as tandem flights go, I'll rig something up in my mouth, and let people who want to "ride", go for free, although you'll have to buy "hick-up" insurance, and not turn me in for “bad breath”, and I will have to charge you for taking “selfies” of by beautiful face.


I haven't picked up on the latest "tunes" yet, but I've been told that there are some, over at Hawks and Larks, so "I'm all ears".

I'll rest up with my friends in the Rockies, and come down once or twice a month for a "show".

You guys at HAWKS have a “H” rating, but I will have to ask for a new “P” rating.

"See ya in a bit..... er.. .bite".

Make reservations well in advance, with my friend BobK, and my cousins at US HAWKS, And put some fun in your life" .

ent=0]maxresdefault[799].jpg[/attachment]

[Everard]

As Bob posted in the history section (https://ushawks.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=22&t=3672), I have created a hang gliding history web site.

I started flying at age 18 in 1974 where I live in southern England. When a fellow club member brought a bunch of American hang gliding magazines back from visiting the U.S.A. in 1975, I was amazed at what the photos of Leroy Grannis, Bettina Gray, Stephen McCarroll and others showed.

In 1975 I set about designing, building, and flying my own hang gliders, but I was always at least two steps behind the state of the art. Nowadays I fly a Wills Wing U-2, but I have not flown since 2017 for various reasons. I was hoping to re-start flying this year, but that does not seem likely to happen with the current virus lock-down.

[Bob Kuczewski]

As Bob posted in the history section (https://ushawks.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=22&t=3672), I have created a hang gliding history web site.

That's the understatement of the year. Your site is extensive. I've spent hours there and I don't think I've scratched the surface.

I started flying at age 18 in 1974 where I live in southern England. When a fellow club member brought a bunch of American hang gliding magazines back from visiting the U.S.A. in 1975, I was amazed at what the photos of Leroy Grannis, Bettina Gray, Stephen McCarroll and others showed.

In 1975 I set about designing, building, and flying my own hang gliders, but I was always at least two steps behind the state of the art. Nowadays I fly a Wills Wing U-2, but I have not flown since 2017 for various reasons. I was hoping to re-start flying this year, but that does not seem likely to happen with the current virus lock-down.

That's an impressive resume. Thanks for sharing it.   

I think the virus lock downs should be subsiding by mid summer. The recent data indicates that it has been much more widespread than previously suspected. Until recently, the bulk of the testing has been of people who were sick or severely sick. So the death rate has appeared higher than it really was. After all, if you only test people who died from the virus, you'll calculate a 100% death rate.

But mostly ...

  Welcome to the U.S. Hawks!!

[Dan Harding]

Hello U.S. Hawks,
Well here is the short version of my introduction to H.G.. Time frame is summer 75. My best friend at the time and I went from my home town of Whiting, Iowa to meet a cousin of mine that knew a guy in the big city of Council Bluffs, Iowa where we could get a certain product. Since my Cuz lived on the old hwy. 75, which runs along and through the small hills of the Missouri river valley we took that road to do what we needed to do. After making the transaction we brought the same road back and at one point the road comes around a hillside on our left and opens up to a flat area of crop fields with a hillside that faced the prevailing S.E. summer winds. At the exact moment I seen the bright colored, "what I thought were tents on the hillside", lifted moved down the hill , then flew to the bottom . Now considering that I was in the back seat of a 1960's Chevy and partaking of the product we had purchased the only thing that came out of my mouth was smoke and the word "WOW !". I then asked my Cuz that lived in that area about that and he tells me that they were "Handgliders" I talked the the Cuz, and my best friend into driving the extra mile over there and we watched the rest of the afternoon. Time frame change, early 1976 There was a new hire at the place I worked and he had these strange racks on his Chevy Nova, I never really thought about his racks until a movie called "SKY RIDERS" came out. Then the past summer with the hang gliders, the movie, the racks on the car, all came together. I could not wait to get to work the next day and talk to Bob Lewis, the "new hire" at my work place. I found out that Bob was a "Dealer" for "PLIABLE MOOSE" and quickly got Bob to give me an introduction, "lesson" to hang gliding on one of the small hills in Iowa. I WAS HOOKED. April rolled by and I took my income tax return to Beneficial Finance in Sioux City, Iowa and borrowed against it, went to Bobs and bought a 18 foot standard, prone harness, hockey helmet, and he also signed me up to a years membership to the U.S.H.G.A.. #20275.. The entire package for $526.00. Over the years that I flew actively I kept log books and I wish I had done a better job of writing things in them that I did not do. but the point I want to make is I counted the different models of wings that I have flown and came up with 32, from standards to Kasperwings. Now with neck and back injuries from the work place I can not fly prone, so I am building a powered trike to get me back in the air.

[Bob Kuczewski]

Hello Dan,

  Welcome to the U.S. Hawks!!



It's always an honor have early pilots like yourself join us at the U.S. Hawks.

Your story about discovering hang gliding reflects the pre-Internet world where people found out about hang gliding by actually seeing it first hand. There's something about seeing things in real life that can't be duplicated any other way. The Internet has greatly multiplied our access to information, but the experience isn't the same.

Now with neck and back injuries from the work place I can not fly prone

A number of aging pilots are going back to seated flying. Frank Colver (USHGA #7, and in his mid 80's) has been actively working on a seated harness for modern gliders. I've seen a number of other efforts as well.

I am building a powered trike to get me back in the air

Please keep us updated on your progress.

[Frank Colver]

WELCOME DAN! Good to have another old timer aboard.

Frank Colver

[JoeF]

KlausHillRichardMillerSTRUTbased.png (22.41 KiB) Viewed 4144 times

Welcome, Dan!

http://www.energykitesystems.net/HGpilo ... rding.html

[DoNotCrashAgain]

Hello,

My name is Brad. I'm an aerotow student and soloed in April, but have no rating, yet.

I've liked the idea of being involved with flight from a young age (I assume like most everyone here!). As a teenager we got involved with model airplanes - first control-line and then radio-controlled. Right out of high school I went into the Air Force as an Aircraft Armament Systems Specialist on F-16s. Within 5 years I had enough of the hot flight-line work, so retrained into computer maintenance and did that for the rest of my 20 years in the military. I then finished my engineering degree and got my first job as an engineer with United Space Alliance (USA) at Kennedy Space Center in Florida. USA provided Space Shuttle processing support hand-in-hand with NASA. Each NASA work center had a corresponding USA work center. I was in the 4-person Space Shuttle Main Engine Controller (SSMEC) group. It was very cool to see and touch the space hardware out there, to include all 3 Space Shuttle Orbiters (Discovery, Endeavor and Atlantis). I learned there how many meetings and how much paperwork had to be accomplished to keep that Space Shuttle flying. It's amazing to me sometimes that it ever got off the ground. After hearing that the years of the Space Shuttle program were numbered, after only a year and a half out there I jumped at the opportunity to be a software engineer with DRS in Melbourne, FL. I've been doing that ever since, but have worked a very limited part-time schedule with a very small tech company since June 2020 because of COVID.

I took my first hang glider ride and lessons in 2020. My username pretty much indicates my goal. I'll save the details and discussion for other areas on this board, but I had an incident on take-off during my attempted 2nd solo flight in April. I'm mostly back to normal other than my right shoulder still giving pain when moving it in certain directions. I'm wanting to be armed with more knowledge before strapping in for another attempt. I would really, really like to avoid breaking another front tooth (as well as the other injuries) as much as is reasonably possible!

Looking forward to reading many of the posts on this forum.

- Brad

[Bob Kuczewski]

Hello Brad,

Welcome to the U.S. Hawks!!



Thanks for that great introduction. Your post reminds me why this is my favorite topic on the forum. It's an honor to have so many pilots with such distinguished backgrounds land here at the U.S. Hawks.

We share a common background in both engineering and computing. I got my aeronautical engineering degree in the early 80's with a few computer science classes thrown in. Even that small amount of computer eexperience (back in those days) was enough to steer my career toward software development for nearly 40 years.

I'm sorry to hear about your bad experiences with towing. I don't personally have a lot of experience with towing (2 hang gliding flights and 3 sailplane flights), but some of our pilots have been towing for decades. Bill Cummings is the Chairman of our U.S. Hawks Board, and his towing experience goes back to the early days of the sport. I hope you'll find some help among our members.

It was great talking with you on the phone, and I hope you'll call any time if I can be of help with the forum or with hang gliding in general. We also have several of the sport's founders (like Joe Faust USHGA #5 and Frank Colver USHGA #7) who've helped bring the sport to the world and are active on our forum.

Hang gliding is the best form of human flight, and we're all here to support our mission statement to promote, protect, and serve recreational hang gliding.

Welcome.