US Hawks Hang Gliding Association

EAST SCOTLAND PARAGLIDING CLUB VS THE BHPA
http://www.precisionparagliding.co.uk/h ... _club.html

ESP membership is open to all pilots who meet (or will shortly meet) and MAINTAIN the following:

Pilots MUST have 2 Million Pounds Public Liability Insurance for the UK
Pilots must have flown 25 hours
Pilots must maintain a currency of 25 hrs per year
To fly on their own at club sites pilots must be maintain a 30 day currency of 5 hours
Pilots MUST comply with the ANO and other relevant acts of UK law (i.e. NO 2 m radios to carried on club sites)
Pilots must agree to respect the occasional restrictions/requests from Landowners of the negotiated club sites
NO vehicles ‘off road’ other than authorised ones on club sites, parking as per Landowner agreements

Membership is open to both BHPC & BHPA CP rated pilots (UK), and all (Non UK) sporting body PG pilots of similar ratings or above PROVIDED THEY CAN DEMONSTRATE A HIGHER STANDARD THAN THAT WHICH GENERATES THE ACCIDENT RATES TYPICALLY SEEN AMONGST BHPA PILOTS.

Membership will also be accepted from independent pilots who can demonstrate a high flying standard

Membership Fees: Pilots agree to contribute approx.. 20 pounds in value per year in cash, bottles or other services to help run the club/club negotiated flying sites.

NB. Annual fees do not include contributions towards ‘top driving’ in the clubs 4x4 pickup.. donations on the day to fue cost etc. are always greatly appreciated!

Here's a post by a paraglider pilot from Goa, India who was clever enough not to leave his contact information on PG Forum. Hang gliding out of paragliding OR paragliding out of hang gliding? Works for me.
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With all that has happened and general disgruntlement with FAI and CIVL over the handling of the Worlds at Piedrahita, IMHO I think it is time for the PG National Associations and Pilots of all the different countries to come together, to form the International Paragliding Federation, and rightfully take control of what is theirs, rather than be dictated terms by FAI and CIVL.

The basic heirarchy for airsports is:

FAI is the top body for all air/aviation sports. All the different International bodies for the different Airsports like gliders,balloning, air racing etc. are members of FAI. Similarly all the National Airsports Bodies of different countries are members of FAI. The IOC(Internatioal Olympic Council) functions on the same basis

The next step are the National bodies for Airsports,in General, and National bodies for each specific airsport. We have a body for all airsports, in India, called "Aero club of India", who are recognised by FAI for all airsports/aerosports in India.

We have also formed and registered a National body specific for PG/PPG called PAI(Paragliding Association of India).

Each Airsport has/should have a national body which controls that particular sport like the BHPA,USHPA( have I got that right ?)which control our sport in UK, USA etc. .

The problem with our sport is that we do not have any specific World/International body specifically for Paragliding.Hence FAI automatically becomes the International body for Paragliding.

If an International body is formed by all the National bodies coming together, the International body will have to be recognised by FAI as the International Federation for Paragliding, and this body will then take overall charge of our sport.

As such the IPF(International Paragliding Federation) will then be the whole and sole International Authority for Paragliding, and will be fully empowered to make the rules and regulations for all matters concerning our sport.

As I see it, there are two options before the Paragliding Community:

1. Form the IPF and get all the National bodies to become members.
2. Get all/majority of the National PG bodies to come together for a meeting to form the IPF.

The need of the hour is for all the National bodies of different countries to agree that there is an urgent need to form the IPF, and to get it done at the earliest.

PAI will be more than happy to join the IPF, and assist in any manner for its formation. But we are too small and insignificant to get the ball rolling with so many big guns out there.

The ball is in your court. Approach your National PG Association/Federation and convince them on the need to form the International body.

We need an influential National body like the USHPA or BHPA, or the French body etc. to take the lead to contact all their counterparts in all countries and get them together for a meeting to form the IPF.

Its a daunting task. But it needs to be done. Some influential person/Association has to take the lead.

DO WE HAVE ANY VOLUNTEERS ????

niel

Rick,
I'm with You on this. Hope this quote supports your topic.
Andrew Vanis seems to be working toward a UShPA regional (not sure which one) director position. Here are some of his ideas.
He seems to pull his logic out of thin air. Also note his derogatory remark about "old" HG pilots.

Andrew Vanis wrote:I am sorry to say that I will have to disagree with you on most of these issues.

1 – I believe (but have not confirmed) there are more HG rated RDs than PG rated RDs (the bi-wingals neutural out) os that takes out the PG bias.

2 – The PG world is still developing so it’s not unreasonable that they would take more support – this is not a bad thing. Let them learn form HGs evolution and HG’s failures. Often this will result in lives saved.

3 – my opinion - since PG is newer, there are more “go get it” involved persons that bring new things to the table. T hose new things get support because they are brought not because they are PG

4 – again, my opinion - if more HG things were brought more would happen on them. In my experience, the HG pilots are generally older and “just want to deal with their own flying” (this came up this week in our club) Many of them no longer have the drive and vision that the newer pilots do. I say newer rather than PG because our newere HG pilots have as much drive as the newer PG pilots

5 – “some should do something for my cause but I don’t have any ideas or I won’t bring it up” is a sentiment I have been getting a lot this week form old HG pilots.

If you have a “strategic” idea to promote HG, please share and I will do what I can to get it through the USHPA.

Cutting away for the PG pilot base though, in my opinion, is a step in the wrong direction. Three is strength in numbers and often a pilot of one discipline ventures into the world of the other. Splitting up would increase the costs of both groups and reduce the effectiveness of both groups as well. Would your bi-wingal buddies appreciate having to paying two higher memberships in an economy like this? Just think about eh site administration headaches.

Andrew
(HG only pilot)


PS I'm happy to continue this discussion but I try to avoid PM if I can but you can always contact me directly at andrewvanis@gmail.com

Hi Sam,

Do you have a link for the Andrew Vanis quote?

Thanks,
Bob Kuczewski

Hi Bob,

Andrew and I exchanged a couple of PM on ozforum. He attended the last BOD meeting, sounded interested in what was going on. He also applied for the office position.

There's been so little "news" from UShPA, I dropped him a line to see if he had any info.

There are several reasons to separate the sports of hang gliding and paragliding. Admittedly, on some issues, compromises could be made. But the over-riding issue is the level of risk associated with each discipline and the direct detrimental effect of that risk on the organization or club.

Why are we talking about this? Hang gliding was fine for many, many years. Hang gliding clubs secured and insured sites, screened new members and shared a lot of personal attention, training and advice. But then something happened. The USHGA adopted paragliding.

Everything changed.

Do you give a lot of your personal attention, training and advice to paraglider pilots? Or are they pretty much teaching themselves, now? Remember when they would launch first and disappear, then conditions would get right for the hang gliders and everyone was happy? Is that what is happening now? Or is your site's soaring window now filled with parachutes the size of three-storey buildings bouncing around in rough air?

And how about accidents? Who's wrecking the most? Who's giving the site a bad name? Which discipline is threatening the launch site and/or the landing site the most? I get answers across the spectrum.

I have identified a new factor that I call the "PDMC Effect." This is where the increased levels of risk in paragliding begin to produce a steady flow of incidents that no amount of pilot training or pilot experience can moderate. Take a close look at your flying sites and see if this effect is evident by a higher incidence and steady rate of accidents among paraglider pilots. This is not a subjective challenge. The answer will be reflected in real numbers.

PG pilot describes take-over of Chilean HG organization by PG
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If more people are preferring PG over HG, there is nothing wrong in acknowledging that with the question "why are more people preferring paragliding?", regardless of your personal opinion or some technical analysis you'd like to add to that. Trying to "pose an HG-favourable" question and answer just to offset what is happening out there is a protectionist measure. What is the purpose, attempt to influence the public to choose a declining sport just because it's older? Nostalgia? Political correctness? You could always have a "Why do I stick to Hang Gliding?" question, but don't forget that you are a minority and it doesn't look like it's going to revert.

Associations are democratic and therefore in theory are representative of their members. If the majority of their members are paraglider pilots, this will be reflected in their policies and programmes. The fact you consider one safer, cooler or more respectable is besides the point.

I saw it happen: the free-flight association founded by HG pilots only, managed to secure sites, government benefits and a relationship with the communities quite successfully. Time went by, they accepted paragliding pilots (that were leaving the skydiving associations behind) and a few years later were outvoted 3 to 1 by the newcomers. The old hangies were pissed off, resigned and left and are now in small groups of 5 or 6 popping up at some sites that are mostly set up for paragliding (no ramps, crammed landing spots, etc. By not accepting change it was their loss.

Unfortunately paraglider pilots are more diverse and have several different and incompatible objectives and profiles, so the association lost organizational capacity to the point that it barely exists anymore…so the HG pilots leaving ended up being our loss too.

It would have been so much easier to embrace change instead of attempting to fight it.

At first paragliders were a part of the skydiving federation, and no more than 10 pilots (this was mid-late 80's). The free flight association were about 50 hang gliding pilots. Then paragliders increased to about 20 and had little in common with skydivers and kept running into hang gliding pilots, and several hang gliding pilots took up paragliding, most of them dropping hang gliding, so they joined the association that ended up about 70% HG and 30% PG for several years. As new PG pilots appeared and HG pilots disappeared, eventually those numbers reversed (this was roughly when I joined), and one day when elections came a group of PG pilots were voted into the board (HGs outvoted). They changed the logo to include a paraglider and changed the license system to make it more PG friendly. Several HG pilots thought this was outrageous and left, but a few remained, and each sport had its own rep in the board. However as most of the members were PG pilots (about 90% after some shuffle) most decisions were made to the benefit of this sport and not HGs, so the few HG pilots that remained became unbearable and were moaning and ranting, and eventually left. So the free flight association went from 100% HG to 100% PG in about 5~8 years.

Embracing change would have been: the HG pilots not leaving and supporting their rep on the board to make sure they had their say and their own projects. The HG pilots had loads of connections, experience and wisdom, but they didn't have the energy to maintain their space in adverse conditions nor the open mindedness to realize that paragliding was here to stay (Who moved my cheese?). They behaved as if their leadership was their divine right and of course it wasn't. Everyone's loss.
http://ozreport.com/forum/viewtopic.php ... sc&start=0