[Rick Masters]

I'd sure like to have you on board.

Bob, when I discovered over a thousand paragliding deaths worldwide, and then, realizing there was nothing anyone could do in terms of safety or design improvements to stop the ongoing slaughter, I was so shocked and appalled and disturbed that I began speaking out against paragliding. To my great surprise, this made me an "arrogant, sneering elitist" in the eyes of the U$hPA.

Mark Forbes: “Over and over, I've heard comments from PG pilots who are interested in HG as a crossover possibility, but put off by the attitude and posturing of some in the HG community. Such as Rick Masters and Rodger Hoyt. If you act like a bunch of arrogant, sneering elitists, you'll attract a few like-minded souls. The rest of the crowd is going to hang out with the cool kids, flying paragliders. *

I doubt there is much I could do to attract the cool kids to the US Hawks. Besides, I get the impression that most of the HG pilots who are left regard Mark Forbes as their Pied Piper and are happy to follow him down the primrose path.

* “Shocking PG statistics,” Sonoma Wings Forum, 26 Feb 2011, http://sonomawingsbb.yuku.com/topic/361 ... Statistics

[Bob Kuczewski]

Great quote from Mark Forbes: "The rest of the crowd is going to hang out with the cool kids, flying paragliders."   

That's so typical of Mark Forbes, and it further demonstrates that hang gliding has no future in USHPA.

I've run in several Regional Director elections since 2008, and even though I've been demonized and villified, I generally get between 1/3 and 1/2 of the vote in Region 3 ... which includes HG and PG pilots. The USHPA leadership likes to point at that result and say "See, you lose". I point at it and say "Between 1/3 and 1/2 of USHPA pilots want a change and USHPA is ignoring them."

Rick, the US Hawks is made up of some pretty outspoken people. We don't sugar-coat things, and that will certainly make it a rocky road. But I also believe the US Hawks is made up of very honest people who want to promote what's right over what's popular. If we can figure out a way to get these people working together - without offending each other too much - I think we really can build a super new organization.

What's the down side in giving it a try?

[Rick Masters]

http://webtv.hurriyet.com.tr/haber/yama ... isti_79406

[AirNut]

What is this? Rube Goldberg reinvents airplanes?

And these people don't even consider hang gliding. "It's too much trouble!" and "I'd rather die than have to carry a hang glider." Ridiculous! (And I keep being asked why don't I call them "pilots.")

That's a good point in many cases. But in other cases, 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.

That's not intended to be a criticism of hang gliders, but a challenge for someone to come up with a more easily "short packed" glider. One of the selling features of the Falcon 3 that I bought was its ability to be short packed. But it's not something you want to do (or even should do) every time you fly. If we want to bring more younger folks into hang gliding, this would be a good problem to tackle.   

Thanks for maintaining this blog Rick. It's great to have you here.   

Well, all of this just proves the old maxim: paragliders are superior to hang gliders in every way...until you take off.

Like most on this forum, I had a (brief) flirtation with paragliding (in the early 90's). I'd been flying HGs since '76 but thought I'd give this new form of gliding a go. After all, combining a parachute with a glider had to be safer, right?

I found it not like flying at all, but more like dangling from a slow and sluggish parachute (hardly surprising). The sense of 'flying', i.e. carving through the air in all three dimensions, just wasn't there. But I thought it was kind of acceptable, if not actually captivating. And then I found out about the collapses. That was it, I dropped the entire idea at that instant. The thought of continuing on a collapsible aircraft never crossed my mind, even for a nanosecond. I think it was my experience in aviation (skydiving, HG and sailplanes) that enabled me to analyse the risk and come up with (IMO) a reasoned judgement.

My worry in all this is that the paragliding newbies are not being given the information to make a reasoned judgement. As an example of what we're up against, (although I know I'm preaching to the choir here), the following is a quote from an HG/PG flying school's website (http://www.learn2glide.com) on their "Hang Gliding Vs Paragliding" page (they teach both), where they compare a PG to a HG.

"...because a paraglider does not have a fixed wing, its canopy can adjust much more smoothly in the face of air turbulence."

This is the nearest they get to mentioning the dreaded 'C'-word, and then end up transforming their collapsible wing into some kind of magical turbulence-smoother-outer!

As a postscript, I've just joined this forum out of sympathy with your stated goals, even though I'm an Aussie. We in Australia have gone through a similar development, namely our national body, the HGFA, now includes paragliding. As with you guys, HG representation in Oz is being swamped by the paragliding community. Some time back the HGFA even merged our national magazine with the sailplane guys (in the interest of economizing). They did wake up to that bit of nonsense in the end but today we are still saddled with a national magazine that is 90 percent filled with paragliding content.

I sincerely hope you can make some headway!

[Bill Cummings]

http://webtv.hurriyet.com.tr/haber/yamac-parasutuyle-planor-havada-boyle-carpisti_79406

Avustralya'nın ünlü Altın Sahil bölgesinde bir yamaç paraşütüyle hang glider adı verilen planör havada çarpıştı. İki sporcunun düşüş anı amatör bir kamera tarafından saniye saniye görüntülendi. İnternette yayınlanan görüntülere göre, bir erkek sporcunun kullandığı planör henüz belirlenemeyen bir nedenle kadın sporcunun kullandığı yamaç paraşütüne çarptı. Çarpmanın etkisiyle iki sporcu da hızla yere düşerken, ikiliyi planörün sporcusunun soğukkanlılığı kurtardı. Planördeki sporcu yedek paraşütünü açınca, araçları birbirine dolanmış olan ikili 20 metre yükseklikteki ağaçlarla kaplı bir ormana yumuşak düşüş yaptı. 20 metre yükseklikteki bir ağacın tepesinde asılı kalan ikiliyi olay yerine gelen itfaiye ve kurtarma ekipleri saatler süren çalışmalar sonucu kurtarabildi. Sporcuların korkunç olaya rağmen yara almaması tek teselli kaynağı olurken, kaza anı yamaç paraşütü yapan amatör bir kameraman tarafından saniye saniye görüntülendi.
DHA
Turkish detected
Google Translate:
With a paragliding in Australia's famous Gold Coast hang glider collided called gliders in the air. Two amateur athletes fall memories Viewed second by a camera. According to the images posted on the internet, hit the slopes for some reason parachute used by female athletes undetermined glider used by a male athlete. Due to the impact of two players quickly fell to the ground, the duo glider athletes recover composure. Once you remove the spare parachute athletes in gliders, tools made of soft fall in a forest covered with trees entangled with two 20-meter height. Firefighters came to the top of a tree hanging over the events of 20 meters in height and two rescue teams are able to save time as a result of working hours. Despite the terrible events of the athlete unscathed while the only source of comfort, appeared the accident second by an amateur cameraman who paragliding. DHA
http://webtv.hurriyet.com.tr/haber/yama ... isti_79406
https://translate.google.com/
Thanks Rick.

[Rick Masters]

Hope that wasn't Air Nut.
Lucky me. Back in the day, I didn't have to worry about 30-foot nets hanging in the sky to catch hang gliders.
Hey Air Nut. What became of Ray Chandler?

[Bob Kuczewski]

Well, all of this just proves the old maxim: paragliders are superior to hang gliders in every way...until you take off.

I found it not like flying at all, but more like dangling from a slow and sluggish parachute (hardly surprising). The sense of 'flying', i.e. carving through the air in all three dimensions, just wasn't there.

That's probably my biggest reason to favor hang gliding. It just feels more like flying. You're connected directly to your wing. When paragliding, it feels like you're steering by remote control.

Don't get me wrong. I do enjoy both, and I plan to continue both as long as I am healthy enough to fly them. But there's something about hang gliding that is just ... awesome!!!

Regarding the collapse issue, I was also not really aware of the dangers during my early training. In fact, I went to some pretty active sites in my P2 days that I would probably decline now - even as a P4. In fact, in the last few years, I flew my paraglider almost exclusively at coastal sites like Torrey.

Adding to collapse issue, many of the PG pilots generated here in San Diego come through the Torrey Pines school, and they often have a somewhat belligerent attitude toward anyone not in their clique (HG or PG). That's not what flying should be like.

As a postscript, I've just joined this forum out of sympathy with your stated goals, even though I'm an Aussie.

We won't hold that against you, mate!!!     

We in Australia have gone through a similar development, namely our national body, the HGFA, now includes paragliding. As with you guys, HG representation in Oz is being swamped by the paragliding community. Some time back the HGFA even merged our national magazine with the sailplane guys (in the interest of economizing). They did wake up to that bit of nonsense in the end but today we are still saddled with a national magazine that is 90 percent filled with paragliding content.

I've given this a lot of thought, and I do think that one single association could handle multiple sports, but it would need a "constitution" of some sort that guarantees certain "inalienable rights" to each sport so that the larger one doesn't swamp the smaller one. It could also be done with specialized subcommittees within the organization so that each sport has their own dedicated representation. But all of those solutions assume that the people running that association actually WANT fairness. We're at the point with USHPA that I don't think that's true any more. That's why we started the US Hawks.

I sincerely hope you can make some headway!

We are. Look, we've even got a guy from Australia signing up on our forum!!!

Welcome aboard AirNut. I look forward to future collaboration on solving our shared problems!!

[Bob Kuczewski]

DHA
Turkish detected
Google Translate:
With a paragliding in Australia's famous Gold Coast hang glider collided called gliders in the air. Two amateur athletes fall memories Viewed second by a camera. According to the images posted on the internet, hit the slopes for some reason parachute used by female athletes undetermined glider used by a male athlete. Due to the impact of two players quickly fell to the ground, the duo glider athletes recover composure. Once you remove the spare parachute athletes in gliders, tools made of soft fall in a forest covered with trees entangled with two 20-meter height. Firefighters came to the top of a tree hanging over the events of 20 meters in height and two rescue teams are able to save time as a result of working hours. Despite the terrible events of the athlete unscathed while the only source of comfort, appeared the accident second by an amateur cameraman who paragliding. DHA
http://webtv.hurriyet.com.tr/haber/yama ... isti_79406
https://translate.google.com/
Thanks Rick.

Thanks for the translation Bill ... except that I'm not sure I understood it any better!!!        

[Rick Masters]

Chocks away! Siberia’s unusual airborne world record attempt
By The Siberian Times Reporter 10 December 2014
http://siberiantimes.com/sport/others/n ... d-attempt/
Daredevil pilot and FOUR passengers with skis and snowboards on single paraglider wait to hear if they have made history.

A Siberian daredevil is waiting to hear if he has claimed a new world record for carrying four people at the same time on his paraglider. Alexander Orlov, 48, wowed onlookers as he took to the skies with his heavy passenger load above the mountain ski resort at Sheregesh, in Kemerovo Oblast.
-------------
I have been told by soaring parachutists that the high numbers of fatalities in paragliding are due to the fact that there are more people on paragliders today. This genius took 4 innocent girls to 2100 feet. It looks to me that he came close to entering a spiral shortly after takeoff - that can happen when the weight shifts to one side - but what do I know? I've only seen one guy killed in a spiral right in front of me. I certainly don't know anything about this genius' emergency reserve set-up and it's hard to envision what it would look like in use. Did I mention that I regard paragliding as a stunt? What's next? I haven't had six people killed on the same day, yet. In the same place, that is...

A new world record for carrying four people? Bob Wills did that 40 years ago. And Guadelupe Dunes was certainly a safer place for this stupid stunt.

[Rick Masters]

A good day for hang gliding.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldne ... crash.html