[Bob Kuczewski]

I can't recall what it [SAT] specifically stands for . . . ,
   :
Spin And Toss?
   :
Self Actualized Terror?
   :

       Those were particularly funny!!

[Rick Masters]

it's not the carrying of the hang glider that makes it too much trouble as much as the transportation and storage. A lot of younger people live in apartments or campuses or barracks, and they don't have the kinds of vehicles or storage that would let them transport and keep a hang glider.

Identifying the type of aircraft one should fly is a decision that should be based ONLY on aerodynamic robustness and structural integrity. Storage, transport, ease of use - none of these should be a factor because that choice is a life or death decision. I think if one wants to fly a hang glider, he will find a place to keep it, create a way to transport it and not whine about carrying it to the set-up spot. I certainly had no problem with any of that. What we have and what you are offering are rationalizations for people making incredibly poor choices that compromise their survival. And I find myself at a disadvantage in this argument because there are 1,284 people who are not here, who might be saying, "You know, I didn't think so before, but now that my paraglider has killed me, I think Rick Masters might have a point. I didn't think this through. I made my choice too quickly and foolishly based that choice on what was easiest and cheapest. I should have valued my own life more and avoided parachutes. If I had chosen an airframe, I'd still be alive because when my paraglider collapsed, I didn't have a chance."

[wingspan33]

Truly, the voices of the dead.

"You know, I didn't think so before, but now that my paraglider has killed me, I think Rick Masters might have a point. I didn't think this through. I made my choice too quickly and foolishly based that choice on what was easiest and cheapest. I should have valued my own life more and avoided parachutes. If I had chosen an airframe, I'd still be alive because when my paraglider collapsed, I didn't have a chance."

The whole deal with collapsible canopies is that you can market them to people who have no valid sense of what safe aviation requires and relies upon. All you need to buy into the "PGing is safe" myth is to have had a dream or two where your body floated through the sky peacefully. Then, or course, you need the collapsible canopy marketeer to convince you that all other forms of aviation are less safe and/or include some other intolerable compromise (like needing a roof rack for your car). The mass market is ripe for positive collapsible canopy promotion because the (once children) Dream/Fantasy Fliers within the middle of the bell curve of human intelligence are (even still) dumb enough be so convinced.

I grew up being amazed, first, by birds, then became interested in airplanes and whether I might fly one someday (this takes me up to about the age of ten). Then the space program came along and astronauts amazed me even more (John Glen flew his first mission on my 6th birthday). As kids my brothers and I designed and made model parachutes, Estes rockets, flew wire controlled model airplanes and "invented" new versions of paper airplanes.

I wonder, what's the aviation related pedigree of your average collapsible canopy pilot? Is it not much more than "I had a dream that I could fly two different times when I was 5 years old." ?

PS - Don't get me wrong. I myself had about half a dozen "I can fly just by floating" dreams over a few years time. But I was also teaching myself and being taught MANY real and practical lessons about what aviation (including it's history!!!) was all about.

[Rick Masters]

Penetration in paragliders

I know it's Thanksgiving Day but this sounds like an April Fools post. I just found a report that the day before Jim Harris had his accident in Punta Arenas, Chile, on November 24, winds were gusting to 90 kph (56 mph) in Punta Arenas. On the day of his accident, winds were so strong - measured at 108 kph (67 mph) - they knocked down a cell tower. Here's the photo:


Harris is a writer and photographer whose work has appeared in National Geographic, Powder, Backpacker, Men's Journal and other publications. He has photographed wilderness outings in Mongolia, Bolivia and Antarctica among other places.
"He's a mountaineer, skier, photographer, writer," his younger brother Kyle Harris told ABC4 News.
He said Jim was practicing with his kite a few days before the expedition was to start.
"A big gust of wind came, lifted him up pretty high in the sky," Kyle said. "His emergency release did not release when he pulled it so he was dragged by his kite, slammed on the ground...He's got four broken vertebrae...The two in his lower back, the thoracic area are totally smashed."
The estimated cost of flying a specially equipped plane to bring him back to the U.S. is $300,000 and his total medical bills will be much more.
http://www.good4utah.com/story/d/story/ ... NTqU62pyCQ

During my flying career, when hang glider pilots started breaking 100 miles from the Owens Valley at the end of the 1970s to the late 1980s, I launched hang gliders many times in what turned out to be sheltered areas where it seemed okay, only to encounter high winds as my flight progressed. Yeah, I was a little too bold in my younger years and I'm lucky to be alive. I've also made many long cross-country flights in excess of a hundred miles where I've passed over violent gust fronts while flying at altitude in smooth air. I've flown around an overdeveloped thunderstorm dumping a huge vertical column of rain that created a furious gust front ring of dust a mile in diameter when it hit the ground. And I've lost altitude and landed in winds so strong I had to push out and hop over power lines while being driven backwards in turblent 40-55 mph winds at the surface. Landings in those conditions were terrifying. I've had to essentially fly into the ground at full bar in double surface ships flying backwards, dig the toes of my boots into the dirt, release the control bar and grab for the flying wires at the noseplate, hoping the glider wouldn't flip over backwards. I've been stuck in that position, crouched forward as far as I could go, French connection full forward, flying the glider on the ground and unable to drop the nose or reach back and to unhook, with the glider sliding backwards, sticking, sliding backwards again, for several tense minutes, watching my reinforced leading edges bow down, creaking, parts of the sail fluttering like machine guns, hoping for a lull.

On other occasions, I've suddenly become aware I was on my back, laying on top of the undersurface, looking up at the sky with no memory at all of what happened. No crash. No damage. No injuries. Yes, I was landing in turbulence just a moment before but not particularly concerned, when I guess a sudden gust must have flipped me over too quickly for it to register in my memory. That was Owens valley and some extreme examples from a pilot who made hundreds of flights there. But it is also planet Earth, and I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that people who fly low-penetration parachutes -- paragliders -- are "bringing a knives to gunfights."

You will need penetration to survive flying on this world. The atmosphere is very dynamic. It changes all the time. Conditions change all the time. It's like my old friend Klaus Kohmstedt told me on Gunter in 1981, "It's not the takeoff that worries me. I can control everything there. It's the landing..."

If you dare to fly Big Air, it is inevitable that someday you will launch in reasonable conditions and find, when you are at altitude, locked in and committed to ten or twenty minutes of descent before you can reach the ground, those conditions will change and wind and turbulence will challenge your survival. That day is coming for you and you must be prepared for it when it arrives. Flying the Owens, every few thermal turns I would scan the valley floor to the south for signs of rising dust. Rising dust meant LAND NOW. I gave up a lot of good flights out of caution. That was easy. Other times, I would look down from a couple miles to see dust storms suddenly spring up, raging below me, tearing across the desert like fingers of a giant hand. Dust storms below meant STAY HIGH and leave this deadly place. But sometimes that didn't work. That was hard.

It is hard, when you run out of options on a hang glider. But if you are foolish enough to choose a parachute as your aircraft, then may God help you because you will be unable to help yourself when the time comes that you need penetration to survive. Nor will you have smooth air at landing. You will need a robust airframe, a defined airfoil and a lot of skill to land safely. Otherwise you risk joining the 1,284 people I know of who have died on paragliders.

Paraglider pilots seem too full of themselves to understand the fickle nature of the atmosphere. If they would listen, I don't think we'd be seeing this endless series of deaths, paraplegia and quadraplegia.

Here is the fund-raising site for Jim Harris.
http://www.youcaring.com/medical-fundra ... ome/269288

[Bob Kuczewski]

Excellent post Rick!

This is something every pilot should read - both hang glider and paraglider pilots.

Thanks for sharing your decades of experience here in your Blog.

[Rick Masters]

Search and Rescue Scam exposed in Europe
http://www.salzburg.com/nachrichten/sal ... al-130083/
---------------------
First, my stand on rescuers. These are among the finest people out there. They put their lives on hold at the drop of a hat. They often risk their lives and sometimes suffer injuries or even die to help sportsmen or others in distress. Because of this, a burden of responsibility is placed on those of us who participate in dangerous sports - a personal responsibility to minimize calls for search and rescue by behaving safely and intelligently.

Second, there is a difference in the demand placed on S&R between paragliders and hang gliders. Because HG has a much better l/d ratio than PG, incidents where hang glider pilots go down in "inaccessible terrain" are historically fewer than PG. Additionally, and very significantly, more than half of the S&R incidents involving PG are due to the sail losing its aerodynamic qualities and dropping the helpless falling human onto rugged, thermal-generating terrain - usually remote mountainsides. Hang gliders are also often a lot easier for rescuers to find in brush than paragliders.

My stance has been that flying paragliders in thermal turbulence over mountains is a poor choice of aircraft. An airframe provides the security needed in this type of air. Hang gliders are clearly the appropriate vehicle. People tend to look at the accident lists, see that there are a great many PG accidents and rescues compared to HG, and conclude (falsely) that this is due to fewer HG pilots and that the accident ratios are roughly the same. But if you compare the numbers on a basis of miles flown, you will find a lot more accidents per mile on the PG side.

But what really stands out is the numbers of search and rescue personnel involved in HG vs. PG incidents. HGs tend to crash closer to roads while PGs go down more frequently in the boondocks. This makes PG rescues a greater expense for S&R organizations than HG, particularly when foot searches are involved. During our history, we hang glider pilots never heard complaints from S&R orgs about excessive numbers of HG crashes. Only in recent years, as more PGs engage in mountain flights and the numbers of rescues rise, have these complaints risen to a crescendo all across Europe.

Now, with the recent passage of legislation requiring mandatory compensation by the victim to S&R for each incident, we are witnessing a new problem arise. With guaranteed compensation, the number of rescuers involved in these operations has increased dramatically. Where ten years ago you would see a response of six or eight rescuers and a helicopter, today we are seeing 25 or 30 rescuers, many more vehicles and often two helicopters. In Austria, each rescuer receives 38 euros ($47) per hour in addition to vehicle and helicopter charges. A single rescue from mountainous terrain can easily exceed $10,000. You can, in large part, thank paragliding for this development.

The words of Mike Brewer, commenting to me as he prepared to launch off Gunter during the 1981 XC Classic, ring down the decades. "If you're not good enough, you shouldn't be here."

When hang gliding embraced parachuting, it set the course for the current situation. Now S&R insurance is becoming common in popular European flying areas. This is a new and additional charge to other rising mandatory fees that affect all free-flyers.

Embrace the tar baby.

Don't think this is over. There now is rising blow-back. Once rescued, the helpless falling humans are grateful until the bill arrives. Several have initiated lawsuits against S&R organizations across Europe for "excessive response." Many others are skipping out on the bill. As I have been warning for years, this will not end well.

Embracing the tar baby has consequences. We can recognize parachuting as a sport without being joined to it by the hip. Hang gliding should stand on its feet and show the world that it has a higher level of responsibility by distancing itself from parachuting. Remember, U.S. hang gliding gave up its most important and hard-won accomplishments - the perfection of structural integrity and a defined, properly-reflexed airfoil - when the USHGA became a "shell corporation" for the U$hPA and accepted the complete absence of structural integrity and a defined airfoil as legitimate basis for the "safety" of its membership. This was unconscionable.

Our national hang gliding organization died on that day. All this back-and-forth with the U$hPA that is constantly going on is nothing but a smokescreen. The U$hPA a parachuting corporation. Hang glider pilots actually have no influence at all. You have no representation. Stop arguing with them. It's meaningless. You will accomplish nothing.

Just shut up and don't make trouble, as Mike Forbes has said, or form a new organization that represents the interests of hang gliding. We call it the U.S. Hawks.

[JoeF]

Nod to your communications good works, Rick,
some was sent to Harris fund.

[Bob Kuczewski]

All this back-and-forth with the U$hPA that is constantly going on is nothing but a smokescreen. The U$hPA a parachuting corporation. Hang glider pilots actually have no influence at all. You have no representation. Stop arguing with them. It's meaningless. You will accomplish nothing.

Just shut up and don't make trouble, as Mike Forbes has said, or form a new organization that represents the interests of hang gliding. We call it the U.S. Hawks.

Rick, I am extremely - and I mean extremely - moved by your last paragraph. "We" call it the U.S. Hawks is exactly the right description. I could type at my keyboard from now until eternity and never build anything of consequence without people like yourself and everyone else on this forum. If the US Hawks ever lives up to its promise, it will be because WE did it together. Thanks so much!!!

[Rick Masters]

If the US Hawks ever lives up to its promise, it will be because WE did it together.

That's how it works. We throw ideas around, we reach agreement, then the lead man forms a BOD and things start happening. I've been there. I can recognize that guy when he steps up to the plate. He comes in swinging and he's going to knock the ball out of the park. I want to say to BobK's critics, who say BobK is running everything himself, who decry BobK for making all the decisions, who think BobK is an emperor or king or Der Führer or what not, that of course, that is what he does for now. That is how it works. That is how ideas turn into companies or corporations or associations. It usually starts with one guy having an idea, with one guy doing the legwork. Some cheer. Others bitch and moan. But that one guy stays on track. It's that one guy who makes it happen. Then he starts delegating and its time for others to step up. But timing is important. People have to get off the fence and get ready. They have to prepare. And that one guy has to decide when people really are ready. If he jumps the gun, things can go wrong. He has to decide. He's carrying the ball so he decides. That's how it works. He's also listening. That one guy can make it happen. Kudos to him.

[Bob Kuczewski]

I've been thinking about the BOD idea, and I'd like to form a working group (similar to the HGAA "Transition Team") to move in that direction. I'm thinking it will start out as purely advisory - maybe little advisements here and there. Then we can slowly "grow" it into taking more and more control. That way we can get a feel for working with each other when the stakes aren't so high. Once we get our procedures ironed out, we can start to take on more serious advisements and eventually take control of the entire association.

In other words, to address Rick's timing concern ("But timing is important"), we'll do more of a "run it out landing" rather than a "big flare". That makes the timing much less critical.

What do you think Rick? Would you like to be part of that working group? I'd sure like to have you on board.