US Hawks Hang Gliding Association

Posted on the Oz Report and Hanggliding.org:

All,

Sad to report the passing of Dave Kilbourne in N.Z. The following is the most current information we have.

To all of Dave Kilbourne’s friends and pilots.

It is with deep regret that Dave passed away on his birthday February 1st. After an extended period of depression he took his life. He has been living six months in NZ and six months in the States. Pam and Dave were to leave for the United States the day before, but Dave changed his mind and decided to come a little later.

Pam had his body cremated and will be spreading some ashes in New Zealand and some in the USA. Dave always liked the missing man formation and wanted to have this done for him. We will plan this in the future. He is now in a peaceful place.

Over the past year he had stopped taking his meds for depression. When the doctors got him back on them they did not take effect. He let his body deteriorate past the point where he couldn’t start his plane (hand propped). Pam recalls Dave telling her that if he was going to go, he wanted to “fly west”.
We will miss him.

Regards

Bill Ingram
Vari-Eze pilot.

I didn't know Dave, but I've seen his interview a couple dozen times in "Big Blue Sky". I mostly remember his deliberation about his first soaring flight. He said he was worried that others would follow him ... and they might be killed in the process. Then he said it came to him clearly ... that was their life and this was his. He was going for it.

It's sad that someone with the thoughtfulness to think so considerately of others has found life on this earth to be so unbearable that he would leave us of his own choice. Maybe this is a lesson we could all learn. Maybe we could try to make life on earth a little better for all of the Dave Kilbourne's among us.

I see Dave's loss as a reminder for us to make this world a more tolerable place for each other. Thanks Dave. I'm sorry you gave so much to remind us of that simple truth.

Bob Kuczewski

Over the past year he had stopped taking his meds for depression. When the doctors got him back on them they did not take effect. He let his body deteriorate past the point where he couldn’t start his plane (hand propped). Pam recalls Dave telling her that if he was going to go, he wanted to “fly west”.

I didn't know the man but I know some things about the disorder.

The meds can cause someone to commit suicide. Read the label.
Young people are even more susceptible to suicide with these drugs than older people.
Going off of them and going back on them could have been the trigger.
These things are nothing to play with and yet Doctors prescribe them like candy.

There can be many reasons to be depressed and not one of them is a lack of seratonin reuptake inhibitor in the bloodstream/brain barrier. These toxic drugs are very difficult to get off of... ever.. and our pill pushing medical professionals fail to explain that little fact to most of their victims.. er.. patients..

These SSRI drugs can make you depressed and suicidal. READ THE LABEl!

Our big pharma military industrial medical complex wants us all medicated for life.. bottom line profit and a dumbed down passive populace of cash cows. They start with our children and they want them all.
This news of Dave Kilbourne really makes me sad and I am one of the few lucky ones that has been able to beat depression on my own terms after my pill pushing Doctor pumped a succession of these nasty drugs off on me a few years ago. I was lucky that I could 'go to ground' so to speak and not have to deal with the problems of work and survival to some extent and eventually weaned myself off of that crap.

Kids don't have a chance when they are put on them. Many are on multiple combinations of these drugs many times 'off lable'. Every time a drug is changed or every new combination is a possibility for a suicidal reaction.
People, don't be so quick to put your children on these things. Do some research. Active kids are normal. Be the parent. Clean up the diet. Make sure kids get enough sleep. Take the electronics away. Get your kids out in the yard, out in the woods doing something, making something, exploring life, creating things. The easiest thing is to stop poisoning their system with garbage food, artificial sweeteners, GMO fructose, artificial dyes, soda and "sport" drinks chock full of crap.

Live un-polluted greens, uncooked 'weeds' are superfoods. It's the diet that is the most problem with 'problem' children. Adults too.. I just think it is unconscionable for parents be feed corporatized garbage to their children and wonder why they may be bouncing off the walls and get bored in the government indoctrination centers (school).

Pardon my rant. I can't wait til spring comes with fresh dandelions and dock weed and a garden growing things that I can eat in the yard. I'm not so good growing sprouts in the winter and it's starting to show. Global warming my a**. Al Gore and Davis Straub's CO2 conflict of interest can kiss it too! Give me more CO2 and let my garden grow!

Eugenics is what AGW cap and tax is all about and so are SSRI drugs, and a host of others. Cholestral drugs, hepatitis shots for babies! How stupid have we become? Why in the hell does it make sense to vaccinate newborn babies with so many toxic things? Fluoride in the water! Bottled 'baby water' with added fluoride at the Chinamart even though the AMA says not to give fluoride to babies! AAARRRGGGHH!!! Pure insanity!!

Dave Kilbourne, sorry you to had to go so soon. Sorry that no one could help ease your burden in time.
I'm sorry for those you left behind. I'm sorry for all of us..

Early 70s Hang Gliding Part 1 Lift February 2011
Dave Kilbourne, d. Feb. 1, 2011. GenLink
LeRoy Grannis passes, 93 on Feb. 3, 2011. Water and sky surfing photographer, friend to so many!
Shane Smith, 22, d. Jan. 15, 2011.
Keith Negal passed Feb. 4, 2011.
Larry Newman, 63, passed: pancreatic cancer. d. December 2010. Notice. OR.
Passed on: Rich Greedus: Feb. 10, 201, hang glider pilot, sky diver, SCUBA diver, and surfer.
=============================
http://www.energykitesystems.net/Lift/2011/2011febLIFT.html
has links and a video link.
Dave even last year had pleasant e-mail.
Barefoot, bearded, he self-soared. He credited NASA on his Kilbo-Plan that was sent in Low & Slow to 23 nations to give exponential growth in village manufacturing of hang gliders in early 1970s.
See you soon, Dave; will miss you until then.
Thanks for your decades of cooperative friendship; via Donita H. you were present at the Big Blue Sky reunion/launch meeting.

Clip from the June1928 issue of Popular Mechanics magazine (page 891) where "Breslau students" are noted as having built the shown glider. Twenty years earlier in 1908, a gliding club in Breslau achieved a hang glider that was most simple in the pilot area: pilot hung behind cable-stayed triangle control frame (TCF) or A-frame for weight-shift control; such arrangement was used in various ways during the following decades by Spratt, by Igor Bensen, and eventually by Burns in Australia and then others like John Dickenson in the 1960s-70s hang gliding renaissance. The late Dave Kilbourne credited on his plan for a hang glider that went in Low & Slow magazine to 23 countries to spark a hang glider manufacturing explosion, appropriately NASA for strong guide on the framed flexible wing known mostly as the framed Rogallo wing, though framed flexible wings were known since early 1800s. Full research on Breslau would be neat. Anyone on Breslau? ~~JpF

Bummer.

In the 70s, at Big Sur, I used to watch him setup his glider upside down cause it had no king post. He'd flip it over when he was ready to launch and then take off. A true pioneer.

I see the news of Dave's death in 2011 has come back to the present in the forum. I heard the news in April of 2011 when talking with Donita H at the Big Blue Sky meet at Torrey. Since this sad news has resurfaced in the forum I'll post this photo of Dave at the 10th anniversary of hang gliding meet at Torrey Pines, May 23, 1981. He flew my Eipper Flexi Floater on the cliff and got several passes, on a very low wind day, before landing on the beach. What amazed me was the number of HG pilots who wanted to look over my Eipper because they had never seen a "standard" Rogollo and this was only ten years after the 1st Otto Lilienthal meet of May 23, 1971! The Torrey pilots were also amazed that a "standard" would actually soar several passes there on such a marginal day. They were barely staying up and they were yelling that: "he's still flying"!

Frank Colver

Dave Kilbourne