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A re-post;
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Starting with, "Master" John Heiney;
"SHAPE UP YOU HAMBERGERS".
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MBedneqSgEY--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
But talk about coopting, which quickly started from day one at many H4 launch sites, and the outfits of the paragliders had million dollar advertising budgets talking lies and half-truths which "infected" many lazy people and even some Hang Gliders, and they were talked into joining this club, or not, (who had stolen the hang glider and the TAF logo name, and made a paraglider company, and even a short music video of a "local" paraglider over Telluride, with the music backdrop of, "I'm a Hang Glider"),
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=80ehv41FXIk ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
pay your dues on time, sign the waivers, get your magazine full of stuff you can buy, and whatever you do, don't say anything which makes the corp. uneasy, or you will be banned.
"it is what it is".
Being a background person of the events of what happened on the very historic Gold Hill Launch Site at the Telluride Ski Area.
Coolest music video. The True Telluride Air Force.
Watch this all, you won't regret it. "THESE OLD SCHOOL GUYS SPARKED THE WORLD".
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lRnK562bCxw------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
in about 1990, kind of like what happened at Torrey, although a state park, and other places around the world, around that time maybe, and the "flood" of people with parachutes in back packs, coming into town. I can speak to this. I was there by sheer luck as one of the plumbers on scene. It really was an "overnight" influx of these new people who when walking up to a launch site and taking a mildewed parachute out of a bag, carefully untangle it on the rocky ground, and very un athletic body position with your hands over your head, inflate the canopy and drift off in the wind pulling franticly sometimes on the break lines. Exactly the opposite of the, "Super Man" body position of HG pilots, connected directly to the C/G, hands in front on this miracle control bar. young and old.
The thing was talked about, "who are these guys really"?
When WE come to launch sites ( and it's quite the feat for the drivers and their trucks, to get from 8745' to 12,200' ) with heavy loads, (you guys at Torrey, well not so much) and with this long tube on the shoulder everybody knows exactly what we're doing, and when the glider is made ready it draws people in just to touch and feel it and sit under it, plus do a complete preflight in front of everybody, of the aircraft, and it is one of the best ever devised and tested, "Machines". We all felt the same thing kinda', when we pulled up with many surfboards or alpine skis on the racks.
Then came the greedy and lazy people who thought they could make money by talking any old person off the street, take their money and their signature, and take them on a sightseeing tour, completely strapped into a parachute by the way, and not having a clue on how to fly. this was the business model clowned thought the world, and it worked, gotta' hand it to them.
Torey Pilots and Telluride Pilots can relate first hand, to rich materialists paraglider culture, and their ability to hide what their doing.
Think of the H4 pilots ( The Telluride Airforce and their amazing "Roadies" and their Trucks ) who had been launching here since 1971, which drew pilots and spectators from around the world for 20 years, exactly like Torrey maybe except for soaring high.
One day, I say X came to the top and asked, think I could fly here? This may have been happening to all launch sites especially to the H4 ones. X flew and impressed most of the HG pilots, and was integrated into a free flight HG club, which had full insurance and backing for 20 years now. Then after a bunch of phone calls, 100's and hundreds of, "friends", came to towns everywhere.
A do over would have been Just say, "ok you guys can fly here if you present your H4 ratings instead of your P4 ticket, and let us test you in the air, otherwise take your really ugly back pack and your self aggrandizing egos out of here". Ha.
If professional H4 pilots of single pilot Flex Wing Hang Gliders ban together in groups or with world wide data base, with their insurance (Maybe Lloyd's) and lawyers, they have a big pull in this new environment.
JMO.