[howie]

Once Upon a Time in region 9 at a place called hyner View there was an observer and his Young Apprentice Observe e who decided it would be very cool to take a Night Flight they landed in the landing Zone and no one was hurt which used to happen back in the day all the time subsequently The Observer pay the penalty of losing all his ratings then there's this show recorded on the West Coast I believe it's called Fact or Faked and there was this debunking of a UFO story in which a hang glider was flown with some LED straped to the bottom at night I'm sure that no one launches from ushpa site on the west coast without some ushpa ratings but I never really heard of any consequences for that are there any thoughts on this subject matter names of Pilots have been omitted to protecting innocent
P.s.if memory serves me correctly I believe Torrey Pines may have been mentioned in the show Fact or Faked

[Bob Kuczewski]

Hi Howie,

I don't know the details of the "Fact or Faked" show, but one of the problems that we've had with USHPA is a very (VERY) uneven application of rules.

For example, I was making a video record of a USHPA instructor (Gabe Jebb) kiting his paraglider without a helmet while instructing students in 2014. The business operating the site didn't like me making that recording and tried to have me removed from the site. After months of legal fees on both sides, they failed to show the court any grounds for removing me from the site. None of the criminal charges against me were ever prosecuted, and I have been able to be there ever since.

But USHPA jumped in - before all the charges had been dismissed - and used the pending charges as grounds for my expulsion. I had violated NO USHPA rules or SOPs or Bylaws, and yet I was expelled by USHPA's kangaroo court.   

To make matters worse, earlier this month, I again made a video record of Gabe Jebb doing the exact same thing he was doing in 2014. It was a clear violation of USHPA's safety rules, and yet USHPA has done nothing to Gabe Jebb.

So USHPA expels people who've broken no rules at all and refuses to expel people who are clearly documented breaking important safety rules.

That's fact ... not faked.

We want to do better at the US Hawks. We want one standard that applied to everyone - whether they're our friends or not. We would very much like to award your H3 rating, but we can't do it just because we like you or want you to like us. That's the U$HPA way - not the US Hawks way.