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The rampant commercialization of paragliding equipment lies at the heart of the erosion of hang gliding over the past two decades. When the hang gliding manufacturers discovered that a greater sales opportunity existed in manufacturing paragliders because of their simplicity and short training cycles, the great strides in safety accomplished in hang gliding were thrown out the window in order for manufacturers and flight schools to profit from "aircraft" that could not survive negative loading. The compromises in safety were rationalized away and a lemming-like mania ensued among new pilots who were never taught the vital importance of an airframe.
The United States Hang Gliding and Paragliding Association is not the only group to suffer complete ethical destruction by these compromises. Complaints are also surfacing from Europe. Walter Kepplinger, Publisher of Austria's Free-Flyer Magazine (Freiflieger-Magazin) expreses his outrage on his website http://www.fetzenundstanglfliegerforum.at/?p=6
"In August 2006 the DHV Subforum for safety has not only been made unreadable for non-registered readers but has also been hidden. Discussions on safety and accidents that previously provided readers the opportunity to read and discuss are now hidden. What's behind it? The [German] DHV has reached a size and structure that is guided solely by profit. It is dominated by people who earn their livelihood in part or entirely with aviation: DHV directors, employees, flight instructors, examiners, writers, forum censors, site assessors, accident experts and filmmakers. This network needs money all the time, so they tell the prospective pilots only how safe our beautiful sport is supposed to be. But too many accident reports can disturb the flow of income from novices. If the "bird is caught and then infected with the virus of flight", the negative aspects of "safety" are best ignored. Safety now suddenly becomes an argument for costly training and tests, labels, more safety training, supervised flight training, and check flights, which have been mainly used to rip off pilots. Because the DHV is a corporation, it embodies a clever and positive marketing force. But it then raises the question whether the DHV is really a nonprofit deserving of tax breaks. The same policy is also pursued by the ÖAeC [Austrian national authority] and the Austrian flight schools. It seems that under no circumstances should the public actually given discussions on the actual hazards of flying. The potential new entrants are regarded primarily as consumers. The slogan used by many flight schools and manufacturers -- "Safety is our top priority" -- must not be questioned. The supreme objective of this marketing strategy is to attract as many beginners into flight school as possible by overstating how easy it is to learn to fly a paraglider. Then the students are suddenly informed of the danger of flying, which is vividly depicted, and apparently stemming from the need for safety, all are sold additional safety training programs."
The failure of this marketing policy, which Kepplinger describes as "duplicity," is evident in the stunning death and accident rate of paragliders in Austria, which are collected on Mythology of the Airframe http://www.cometclones.com/mythology2011.htm
Kepplinger's sentiments are strongly echoed by safety commissioner Luigi Borsoi, Italy's advisor to the Italian Federation of Free Flight (FIVL): "What worries us is that we are aware that the model currently proposed by a sizeable slice of the [paragliding] industry to the pilots and students in schools is indeed unwise - and upstream, the root cause of much damage. The conduct of these businesses is apparently so simple that all too often this activity is sold as a form of flight available to everyone and once taught, with courses that approximate the basic techniques of takeoff and landing, sells flying equipment to these students. The notions of theory are taught superficially, without depth and too fast, for the sole purpose of responding to the quiz on memory examination."
After milking as much cash as possible out of new pilots from sales of equipment and flight instruction, the epitome of safety training in paragliders is, of course, teaching a pilot how to attempt to recover from a high-altitude collapse. These "SIV" programs are heavily endorsed by the schools and seem to imply that the collapse of a paraglider's sail in turbulence is in fact manageable and therefore is no big deal. But there is no training for low-altitude collapse. There is, regrettably, no recourse at all.
In April of 2009, the British Hang Gliding and Paragliding Association announced: "Unfortunately there is no evidence (other than anecdotal) that learning and practicing recovery skills on ‘pilotage’ or ‘SIV’ courses actually results in safer pilots who therefore have fewer accidents. In fact there is some evidence from previous fatal accident investigations that pilots who have learnt these ‘recovery’ skills have tended, in real-life incidents, to concentrate on attempting to regain control of the wing rather than on saving their life by deploying their emergency parachute."
So my question to Bob and the other members of the US Hawks is "Where do you stand?" It is clear to me that the endorsement of paragliding is killing the national organizations, killing hang gliding and killing potential hang gliding pilots in droves. How can the US Hawks structure itself to prevent its being corrupted in the same way as virtually every other national organization?
Now this has been worth reading 
