[Frank Colver]

I did as Rick did, before I was ready to progress to the higher hills and mountains I would go to those places in my pickup truck, with my glider rack on top, and offer to shuttle pilots back up from the LZ. That way i got to talk with a lot of people flying higher than I was at the time and watch them launch, fly, sometimes soar, and land from the higher sites. Of course I eventually flew those sites and was very proud of my progress.

I'm going to end this post and post another because I don't want people to miss my next entry.

Frank

[Frank Colver]

The term "Free Flight" in reference to hang gliding was never uttered to my eyes or ears until hang gliding was no longer "free flight". How ironic that term would be coined after "free flight" in hang gliding was mostly gone. I guess this is "Orwellian Speak" to keep us believing we still have something we have mostly lost. Hopefully, there are still a few free flying souls out there somewhere where nobody sees them. From Bill's posts that may be in New Mexico.

When I switched from hang gliding to foot launched ballooning my biggest disappointment was all of the tests, and approvals,and fees to first get my private license (hot air balloon rating) and then the hassle of finding an instructor every two years to keep it current no matter how many flights I logged. This was a hassle because, like hang gliding, I wasn't flying from airports.

Then some ballooning field sites started requiring insurance. I complied since the liability insurance was inexpensive for a single place, non-commercial balloon (low liability risk). Then the insurance companies decided there weren't enough of us non-commercial, solo, pilots to make a separate category (sound familiar?) and the only insurance I could buy was commercial pilots (flying passengers) insurance (even though I wasn't one) which cost a huge amount, so I had to fly without insurance and that greatly limited my ability to fly at ballooning fields with other pilots. There were still several meets each year where the organizers didn't care if I didn't have insurance and I loved those events and looked forward to each one.

Hang glider pilots cannot buy solo hang gliding insurance just like I could no longer buy solo, non-commercial, hot air balloon insurance.

Eventually I so missed the free flying days of my hang gliding that I quit ballooning. It was too much of a regulatory hassle and of course I was squeezed out of some favorite flying venues due to lack of insurance. Sadly, I din't return to hang gliding then (I had already sold my SST) because of a promise I had made to my wife when I went to ballooning from hang gliding.

I hope my experience helps to shed light on what has happened and is happening to hang gliding (jokingly now called "free flight".) Give me a break!

Frank Colver

[SamKellner]

As far as having no flight schools, How will pilots find out about PIO teaching them selves? Do you want them to find out the hard way like in the good old days?

Good question.     


The US Hawks Board recently voted to approve a mission statement proposed by Joe Faust that explicitly uses the phrase "recreational hang gliding". I initially planned to vote agaimst that because I think schools and instructors are important to the sport. But after some consideration, I was convinced that the mission statement doesn't exclude support for such commercial operations. It just emphasizes that our support of commercial operations must serve recreational hang gliding. That case can easily be made for schools operated by people like Joe Greblo, Rob McKenzie, and John Heiney.

Additionally, we will strongly support the traditional mentoring model as exemplified by the work of Bill Cummings and Robin Hastings in the RGSA. The attention they devote to new pilots is excellent, and since they're not trying to turn a profit, there's no rush for them to move on to the next student. They're building a community and not a customer base.

At first I didn't think too much of the newly adopted Mission Statement. After some thought it seems fine that the mission is simple and to the point about what we want to support,
hang gliding.

Recreational hang gliding is surely what we've been doing here at SWTHG.

Maybe it appears that I'm riding the fence, supporting US Hawks and having the u$hPa Basic Instructor appointment.

Within the last ~5yr my dues have gone from $99 to $300 and now $350. I'm not real happy about that.

And now they are asking for donations to start a Ins. co. USHPA and Foundation have only ever granted $149 to Reg11. That was 8yr ago.

It is worth the $350 to me to have the opportunity to bring new people into the sport of hang gliding There are other costs.

I would not turn down a couple of contributing $tudents.

Yes, those interested will need a place to learn.

our support of commercial operations must serve recreational hang gliding

[Rick Masters]

A comment on "self-taught" vs. "peer teaching."
    Rich Pfeiffer came to hang gliding from skydiving. His friends just took him up a big hill and sent him off on a hang glider, saying he'd figure it out on the way down. I think he broke something, like a finger, at landing. He went on to become the US National Champ in the late 1970s.
    That's "self-taught."
    Around the same time as Rich became champ, I bought a Seagull III and took it up to the steepest part of Hogback Creek Road at the base of Mt. Whitney. I'd only seen one hang gliding flight four years' previous. The wind was light north. I figured out how to set it up and hooked in. Shouldered it. Started to run. Felt it go light. Felt the hang strap start to lift me. Felt my feet leave the ground. Noticed the barbed wire fences on both sides of the road take on new significance. Pushed out in a panic, dropped a tip and slid to a halt, thinking, "I'd better find somebody to help me do this."
    That's almost "self-taught."
    "Peer teaching" is when your buddies actively engage in your training by flying around in front of you and by teaching you to take off from hills and, later, cliffs. Their incentive is to get you into the air as quickly as is safely possible so that you can all have fun in the air together.
    In a single-place aircraft, "self-teaching" pretty much begins when you leave the ground, anyway. Neither I nor my "peer instructors" ever saw a need for radio instruction. They must have felt you were advancing too quickly if radio instruction was ever called for. So they just yelled. It worked just fine during the "low and slow" stage. After a while, they stopped making noise and I listened to the wind.
    An apt pupil can progress very quickly in areas with favorable conditions.
    Formal training is different. The certified instructor is under tremendous pressure not to have a student injured. The student is often one of many. An altruistic instructor is much like a peer. But a commercial instructor is also driven by profit. Dragging on training both serves to reinforce safety and skill - but also increases profit. Some people do better with formal instruction. Others, like me, don't.
    In "peer training," pilots go to the places where conditions are best. But in formal training, a school, for instance, has to wait for good conditions to arrive at their training site. You can see why the number of good days for "peer training" is higher, and why new pilots involved in "peer training" tend to advance quicker.
    A certified instructor will always make the case that formalized training is generally safer than "peer training," and this is true. But I have found that people who engage in "peer training" are more focused and driven than students in schools, and therefore advance much faster.

    I was a bit puzzled by the PIO comment. Yeah, self-taught guys who learned in the early days and even new pilots today who aren't paying attention might suffer from pilot-induced oscillation. It's common to all aviation but less common on hang gliders because, I think, it takes more effort to accomplish. But it's just another thing you learn about in both peer and formal training.

[Rick Masters]

"Orwellian Speak"

    Calling parachutes "gliders" after gliders and sailplanes have been defined for 100 years.

...the mission statement doesn't exclude support for such commercial operations. It just emphasizes that our support of commercial operations must serve recreational hang gliding.

    I do not read either support or exclusion of commercial activities in the mission statement. Unlike the USHPA which has lost itself in a quagmire of commercialism, and which some will argue has brought about its downfall, the U.S. Hawks should be indifferent toward commercial activity and allow that activity to sink or swim on its own merit. By simply supporting recreational hang gliding, the U.S. Hawks helps create the foundation commercialism needs to prosper. I would go so far as to say the U.S. Hawks should accept only membership fees and anonymous larger donations only.
    The Foundation for Free Flight has made a fundamental error in getting too closely involved in the USHPA and the USHPA insurance debacle. This debacle has been brought about by irresponsible commercialism. It would have been much more appropriate for the FFF to endorse and support the right to fly by individually-responsible citizens. When the FFF failed to comment on the USHPA action in regard to BobK, I knew it would go this way. The U.S. Hawks and perhaps similar organizations may be the only hope for hang gliding now that the USHPA and the FFF have been swallowed up by parachuting and commercialism.

[ARP]

Yes self taught but first had to design and then build the glider. Must have worked or I would not be around to write this post.

Tony

[SamKellner]

Congrats Tony,

My original Mentor moved from Tx. to Alaska in '75, one year after I first started flying.

So I moved to San Diego, Ca. Those were the days.

[Frank Colver]

As far as having no flight schools, How will pilots find out about PIO teaching them selves?

Avoiding PIO's is mostly self taught every time. It's good for a beginner to be told of the condition and the danger but the reaction is self taught and through practice. In any situation where there is a delay between action and reaction the person controlling the vehicle has to form their reaction to an event, and not over react, through practice. There is little or nothing an instructor can contribute to teaching to avoid PIO's if that instructor isn't able to take over control. That is the case in all solo vehicles.

The key of course is to not hold the control input until the vehicle has reached the point aimed for when a delay is involved. Probably the flying vehicle most difficult to gauge, when making a change in position, is the hot air balloon. Often times having to end the burn before the balloon has begun to change vertical direction. Practice, practice, practice, and get completely familiar with the vehicle characteristics. That latter is why I always own the vehicles I use for recreation. Some may have wondered why, at my age, I purchased a glider (when I got back to HG) instead of flying other ones available at the site. Well, I just told the reason.

After years of this self training I have noticed that I tend to not over control what ever vehicle I'm operating, especially if I'm very familiar with it. Usually this involves "backing off" when I start to feel the vehicle reaction to the control input, when a delay is involved. An example: The glider is starting to stall and a quick reaction is needed. Pull in hard but when the nose starts to rotate downward start moving back toward trim. If you wait until the glider is rotating rapidly toward dive - well, PIO!

Moderation in all things.

Frank

[Bob Kuczewski]

USHPA has got us all programmed that we need their stamp of approval to instruct anyone in hang gliding. They make it seem like it's some kind of a crime ("instructing without a license") to instruct anyone in the sport. That's a perception that's pushed to protect the incomes of their buddies.

The reality is that a good waiver will protect against lawsuits ... even if the instructor is negligent. But the courts have upheld that such a waiver does NOT protect against GROSS NEGLIGENCE. So instructors who feel that they need to be more grossly negligent than "plain old negligent" would be wise to get insurance.

[Rick Masters]

See Dennis Pagen's early books for the greatest resource for becoming "self taught."
I will always be grateful to Dennis for writing those books.