The hole in Tx's arm where all the $$ goes

[terryJm]

Now wea'r a talkin, Great to see you'r respose, Pilgram. Would the 'Beach' be at Canyon lake, or the coast? Might look at the sat. view to find it, or one of the renagade sites; and yes, spectaculer flights are not that uncommen when you time you'r launch and coordinat your turns, of course air bag traffic can cause unnessicary turbulence, besides kiteing in the way, interfearing with our soaring. You may see part of my referances on the FFA Compliance thread. And we need to keep ALL the sites OPEN as possible, to match the variabillity of conditions. So many hills, so little time. See you at the top of the stack! Terry

[Bob Kuczewski]

We will know very soon whether the Board of AFFA has managed to negotiate a lease with the owners of Pack. The results will have a huge impact on local flying. If you have any good ideas, the board could use any help they can get.

Despite the concerns I've voiced, I do wish you the best of luck to keep your site open. Sincerely.

[Bill Cummings]

EEERRRR!! DON’T DO IT BILL! ---STOP IT! ----FIGHT IT BILL! OH DARN HERE I GO AGAIN.

Shoot! Oh well might as well get my head bit off again. (Pilgrim, Ignore this post in the interest of lowering your stress level. )

In the interest of keeping “Pack” open when it looks like the road repair costs maybe the “deal breaker,” and let’s say for the sake of this discussion that becomes a reality. (Caution, Pilgrim, you should not be this far down the post. )

Hard to swallow that but let’s say we are all in the LZ looking up at the launch with no way to get up there by four wheel drive of any kind.

So how many of the Texas pilots can tow. What percentage from that area?

If I lived there I would next be talking to the land owner about allowing some type of scooter/pulley tow operation at the bottom get up and soar Pack!

Yes it would mean the loss of a foot launch site but not necessarily a soaring site with a great LZ. (Pilgrim, you were cautioned. I don’t want to hear back from you concerning my post.)
Bill C.

[Pilgrim]

For all those who hate Pack and longed for its demise...Great News! Pack is no more! Our country has one less meaningless foot launch hg/pg site to deal with. HOOOORAYYY

Pilgrim

[Bob Kuczewski]

I'm very sorry to hear about that.

Can you tell us what happened?

[Pilgrim]

Hi Bob,
I will be careful here because I do not want to offend the owners should they come across this. They hate publicity because of the tresspass issues on their land.

I believe there are three driving forces. The first is that someone died hang gliding there recently. That was the first HG death at Pack ever. Us old timers often thought that is all it would take to loose the hill.

Also, there is an antanea on the hill that Lyndon Johnson put up in the sixties so he could communicate with the White House while at his lake house that is just down the road from Pack. The county had leased this antanea for years to host their communications package. Part of their deal was they kept the road to the top graded. When they left, so did the road maintenance. The owners used this to force the issue. They wanted to raise the lease to 10k per year and they wanted us to pony up an additional 15k to fix the road. We simply do not have those kind of resources. So we could not come up with the ante and they refused our offer of 2k per year on top of the lease of 10k for road maintenance. They wanted us to pay for it all.

Lastly, and in my humble opinion, the overriding problem is that the powers that have controlled Pack for the last several years have failed to develop or maintain good relations with the owners. (And as you can tell by the opinions of Sam and many many others relations with the long time pilots at Pack have been left to rot also). We used to know the owner. She was a friend of the family. We had personal interaction with the owners. In recent years, the land went into and is now on the way out of a FLP. Other members of the family have come into direct control positions. No one bothered to keep up the personal relations. One of the decision makers really does not like us...from my point of view with good reasons.

So they did what any good businessman would do to fire a customer...raise the price past their limit. Well they succeeded and we have lost big. As one of our members recently summarized it...CRAP.

And now it is gone.

Pilgrim

[Bill Cummings]

Al,
I suppose you are going to rub our faces in it --right?

As a sport we failed your training efforts to the point you moved on to trikes.

Which as it turns out is now the only way to soar Pack legally.

[SamKellner]

In the first post of this topic, I said.........

Letting go of PackSaddle would probably do a lot more good for flying in Reg11.
Sam

Just over a year later...............

RE: [HHPA] 8-25-13
Posted By: mickdhoward mickdhoward
With three veteran pilots returning to active flying and new pilots already in training and with aerotow operations at Gloster, Luling and Columbus with several new trike pilots planning to complete training for tug duty by next year, 2014 should be an active year for hang gliding in our area.

Having fantastic soaring conditions, several aerotow tow operations and winch towing (truck and boat mounted) operations, this area will be the envy of the US flying community – roll on 2014.

[Bill Cummings]

So with Pack Saddle removed from the flying equation it’s starting to look like other options are filling in what was thought to be a void that would never again be filled.

Where I started out in northern Minnesota, in our area, we didn’t even have a hill site to lose. We were flatlanders'. If we didn’t tow we were bottom dwellers. Our closest soarable ridge was more than two hundred miles away. You couldn’t swing that every night after work.

Sam you were right. Like Bob K. inferred (or maybe even you and he effectively said,) If a group sinks the majority of their collective money resources into a rental, once you get your thirty day notice to vacate, what do you have to show for your investment?

[Pilgrim]

Some interesting facts:

1. Since Pack closed going on two years ago, many pilots in the area have had little or no airtime in Texas. We have to go out of state now. Several pilots gave up and left the sport. From my count, this is at least twice the number of new pilots coming into the sport here.

2. There are only two commercial aerotow operations in Texas from Houston to San Antonio to Austin.

3. There have been three times the deaths in Hang Gliding in the last two years (all aero tow) than occurred in the last 30 years.

4. One of the tow operations only opens on weekends and spends most of the time making money by giving tandems.

5. The other operation is not really open to the public. It is by invite/reservation only. It accommodates only a very few people on a vary random basis and operates out of a completely private airstrip.

6. The only other tow operation is a private club that is on the verge of collapse. After a death and a serious injury this year they have all but shut down. Something about all the tug pilots leaving the club.

In summary, the loss of Pack has been absolutely devastating to hang gliding in Texas. We all go to Colorado, or Oklahoma, or Arkansas, or Wyoming or Arizona now.

Just the facts...

Pilgrim