US Hawks Hang Gliding Association

Banned of Brothers

As this forum has evolved, I've noticed more and more people joining who had been banned from other forums (like hanggliding.org, ozreport.com, and hgaa.org). Unfortunately, when people are banned, they just seem to disappear and no one seems to notice. Maybe most of the remaining members assume that the missing members just stoppped posting for a while. There's usually no big red flag that says "Moderator XXX has banned Member YYY". This does two things.

• First, it destroys relationships within the hang gliding community because people who have relied on a forum for communications with fellow pilots are suddenly unable to contact their friends. Even the ability to use PMs (Personal Messages) is lost, and any PMs which might have contained phone numbers or email addresses are lost as well.
   
• Second, the relative secrecy of the banning undermines the community's ability to react to any injustices. The fact that Helen (who visits the Oz Report fairly frequently) wouldn't know that Tad had been banned is a good example. Whether Helen enjoys Tad's remarks or not, it's quite possible that she would speak up for him if she thought that the banning was unjust. But by making these bannings relatively obscure, the community isn't given the chance to raise up and voice their opinions.

For all these reasons, I'd like to start a list of forums and people who have been banned from them. I'll keep the list in this first post, and any discussions can take place in the rest of this topic. I can update this post with additional information as time goes on. So please feel free to post about any bannings that you know or are aware of. I hope this can bring some insight into the "disappearance" of our pilots. Sadly, these lists are incomplete because none of these sites (except the U.S. Hawks) reports on the members that have been banned.


People who have been banned from: ushawks.org (operated by US Hawks Board)

• Tad Eareckson
• "Nobody" - Not banned but restricted to the "Free Speech Zone"
• "hawk891" - Posted pornography, believed to be a "sock puppet" for someone else

People who have been banned from: hanggliding.org (operated by Jack Axaopoulos)

• Brian Horgan (Noman)
• Tad Eareckson
• Warren Narron (Free)
• Scott Wise (Wingspan34)
• Bob Kuczewski (bobk)
• Al Hernandez (al hernandez)
• Tommy Thompson (Soar8hours)
• Ben Reese
• Joe Faust
• Chris McKeon   . . .  Note: claimed to be a "glitch", restored as of Nov. 3, 2021
• Doug (dhmartens)

People who have been banned from: ozreport.com (operated by Davis Straub)

• Tad Eareckson
• Bob Kuczewski (bobk)   . . .  Note: Bob was temporarily allowed to post only in expulsion topic as "Bob Hawk".
• Dennis D
• Scott Wise (S C Wise)
• Al Hernandez (al hernandez)
• Nobody? RidgeRodent? Steve Davy?   . . .  Note: From unconfirmed posting on kitestrings.org
• Ben Reese
• Rick Masters

People who have been banned from: hgaa.org (operated by Jack Axaopoulos)

• Scott Wise (Wingspan34)
• Bob Kuczewski (bobk)
• Everyone - The HGAA (hgaa.org) appears defunct as a hang gliding association.

People who have been banned from: torreyhawksforum.org (operated by Jack Axaopoulos)

• Everyone!! - Jack locked the entire site after defacing it and using it as his own billboard to attack people he didn't like. He effectively banned EVERYONE from the club's own web site!! Check it out at: torreyhawksforum.org.

People who have been banned from: kitestrings.org (operated by Tad Eareckson)

• Bob Kuczewski
• Sam Kellner
• Christopher LeFay
• Lin Lyons
• Orion Price
• Matt Pruett
• Jeff Roberson
• Jim Rooney   . . .    "hell would hafta freeze several times over"
• Swift

People who have been banned from: paraglidingforum.com (operated by ??)

• Rick Masters
• Joe Faust
• Bob Kuczewski

People who have been banned from: eaaforums.org (operated by ???)

• Chopper Girl

People who have been banned from: Facebook (operated by Mark Zuckerberg)

• President Donald J. Trump
• Untold hundreds or thousands of others

People who have been banned from: Twitter (operated by Jack Dorsey)

• President Donald J. Trump
• Untold hundreds or thousands of others

Please post to this topic if you know of others and I'll keep updating this list.

Add me to the banned list of the OZ Distort. *smiles* I wear THAT with pride.

Dennis wrote:Add me to the banned list of the OZ Distort. *smiles* I wear THAT with pride.

Welcome to "the banned of brothers" Dennis.

In all seriousness, this banning of people who express different opinions is ridiculous, childish, and petty. Both Davis and Jack (and even John Wright) should be ashamed for suppressing people with differing views. They couldn't stand up to the heat of fair argument, so they reached for the "ban button" rather than be embarrassed by their mistakes. Even worse, they've played right into the hands of those who want to control this sport for their own gain.

If hang gliding continues to decline, I think we should remember Davis, Jack, and John Wright for their contributions to its demise. I challenge any of them to come here and debate me where their posts will remain unmolested.

Welcome to the "Banned of Brothers" Al.

Hi Tad,

I see that you are posting on OZforum again.

SamKellner wrote:Hi Tad,

I see that you are posting on OZforum again.

Hi Sam,

Where's his post? I checked the Oz Forum and didn't see it.

It would be good news for Davis to start rescinding these bans!!

Thanks,
Bob Kuczewski

Thanks for the vote of support Sam. I appreciate it.

Unfortunately, you may have seen an old post of mine from a topic that's been recently revived by current events:

http://ozreport.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=14903

I had posted additional information there (including photos) that Davis ended up moving and deleting. So you can't really trust what you read on that forum.

P.S. I've got another version of this reply at:

http://kitestrings.prophpbb.com/post516.html#p516

with perhaps a bit more editorializing about some of the participants in that discussion than Bob might like to see here.

Tad,

Oops! My mistake. The '09 LMFP "New Release" topic was revived recently. I went back to read the first page, can you believe that, and failed to verify the dates of the earlier posts.

Let me say, there is a lot about flight theory, if that's the correct term, that goes right over my head. However, when I see others who are so committed to the sport, it does make me put forth a little more effort to understand other's points of view.

I like BillC's example of teaching a 4yr old to ride a bicycle. No technical manual required.

But we are adults and there are some technical aspects of HG that need to be understood. Especially towing safety.

Thanks for your contributions here on US Hawks forum.

Sam
SWTHG
Hawks Chapter #4

TadEareckson wrote:P.S. I've got another version of this reply at:

http://kitestrings.prophpbb.com/post516.html#p516

with perhaps a bit more editorializing about some of the participants in that discussion than Bob might like to see here.

Tad is brilliant, tireless, and sometimes obnoxious. So we (Tad and I) have an agreement that we want all of his brilliance and tirelessness here on the US Hawks forum, and he's welcome to post links to his obnoxiousness (which resides on KiteStrings) for anyone who wants to read it.

Seriously, we've got an interesting mix of talented, passionate, and even zealous people on this forum. I think that's a powerful but potentially volatile mix. If we treat each other respectfully, I think we can harness all that talent, passion, and zeal without it blowing up in our faces. I truly, truly applaud anyone who's willing to let any actual (or perceived) slights roll off their backs like water off a duck. Thanks in advance for the tolerance that will help us work together.

Most Most Sincerely,
Bob Kuczewski

Sam,

I went back to read the first page, can you believe that, and failed to verify the dates of the earlier posts.

BTDT. Makes your head swim quite a bit when when you finally catch it and shoot through the time warp.

Let me say, there is a lot about flight theory, if that's the correct term, that goes right over my head.

Ditto. The good news is that we really don't hafta understand much about flight theory to function
effectively, efficiently, safely in the air. Turkey Vultures and Barn Swallows understand zilch about flight theory and they're gonna kick our monkey asses to an unimaginable degree every time.

However, when I see others who are so committed to the sport, it does make me put forth a little more effort to understand other's points of view.

Some more good news is that this has zilch to do with the points of views of anybody but Sir Isaac Newton. Hang gliding is the only branch of aviation that's opinion based. As soon as we start doing it by the numbers - the way everyone else does - we're gonna start seeing a lot less death and destruction and getting a lot more airtime and having a lot more fun.

I like BillC's example of teaching a 4yr old to ride a bicycle. No technical manual required.

Yes and no.

Let's make him a six year old to make things a little easier.

I used to teach on the dunes at Kitty Hawk Kites. I think we had a minimum weight cutoff of eighty pounds so we didn't get any six year olds. But let's build a trainer over which a sixer would have sufficient control authority.

In a light mild breeze you could probably train a sixer to foot launch, make turns around pylons on his way down the slope, and land safely. All that's pretty intuitive.

I sure wouldn't want to let him get into a situation in which he was unexpectedly pointed back towards the dune with a tailwind. The response to that situation is extremely counterintuitive. That's a lot of what got John Seward killed at Packsaddle a bit over a year ago. And he was four and a third times as old as a sixer.

But we are adults and there are some technical aspects of HG that need to be understood.

We don't build the gliders. And the people who DO build the gliders know what they're doing and are responsible in getting them up to and well beyond certification standards so we're off the hook for most of the tough stuff. About the only thing in which they're currently grossly negligent is leaving aerotow releases to the scum that run the flight parks versus building them in properly like they do in REAL aviation.

We know how to foot launch, thermal, and - for those who must - loop.

Only the best of us know how to approach and land. Standups and spots are maimers and killers. We need to start watching how landings are done in real fixed wing aviation and duplicating it.

Especially towing safety.

Towing safety - as, for the most part, it's currently implemented - is an oxymoron.

Here's where the six year old kid with a kite is gonna kick our asses almost to the same degree that the vultures and swallows do with respect to free flight. This is primarily why my forum is called "Kite Strings".

A sixer wants to go out with his kite, get as much airtime and altitude as possible, and bring it back home in one piece. He accomplishes this by running and blasting it into the air with a lot of tension, often with the aid of a launch assistant at the downwind end, on a zero stretch string many times stronger than what will be needed for the job and regulating the tension in accordance with what he sees the kite actually doing. He doesn't use weak links, auto release mechanisms, tension gauges, or radios and he doesn't let go of the string every time things get a bit out of kilter.

And just by applying a bit of common sense this kid is often gonna do a lot better than the brain dead twits running the aerotow parks and operations.

Adam Parer - 2009/11/25

Due to the rough conditions weak links were breaking just about every other tow and the two tugs worked hard to eventually get everyone off the ground successfully.

In The Beginning... We didn't know that we needed to hook the towline up to the either the pilot or a bridle running between the pilot and hang point. But by 1979/09/26 Brian Pattenden had figured that out and announced it to a meeting of the Norfolk Hang Gliding Club in Suffolk (England).

And most of the rest of the important stuff...

Manned Kiting
The Basic Handbook of Tow Launched Hang Gliding
Daniel F. Poynter
1974

"The greatest dangers are a rope break or a premature release." - Richard Johnson

The tow line should be ... made of 2000+ lb. material...

Broken ropes have put many kite flyers in the hospital and a few in the ground.

"A bad flyer won't hurt a pin man but a bad pin man can kill a flyer." - Bill Bennett

The boat should not fly him wide open because a burst of speed may be needed to pick him up at one point.

Often a flyer who appears to be in a hopeless position at 6', recovers and continues to fly.

"Never take your hands off the bar." - Tom Peghiny

...we had known LONG before.

The six year old who's flown the kite on the beach from the upwind end of the string and down the dunes from the bottom end of the hang strap instinctively understands this common sense stuff.

The twenty-six year old computer programmer who is "trained" at a flight park and/or reads Towing Aloft generally suffers irreversible brain damage - long before he gets the chance to stall or lock out and further scramble things - and almost immediately starts "thinking", sounding, equipping, and flying like the perpetrators.

None of this is rocket science. Let's get the hell away from efforts to understand others' goddam points of view and back to reality, basics, common sense.

Thanks for your contributions here on US Hawks forum.

And thanks much for participating in the conversations - let's keep 'em going.

And let's keep hitting people where it hurts Davis and Jack. Or cut out the middlemen. Either way I'm totally cool with it.