[SamKellner]

https://www.google.com/maps/place/Torre ... 117.251201

Here's the view of the glider runway. Not sure there is enough room left for towing with the "recent" development on the east end adjacent to North TP Road..

It looks like <1500ft .

[Bob Kuczewski]

https://www.google.com/maps/place/Torrey+Pines+Gliderport/@32.8896539,-117.2481973,534m/data=!3m1!1e3!4m5!3m4!1s0x0:0x8f244f06aa6472e0!8m2!3d32.889867!4d-117.251201

Here's the view of the glider runway. Not sure there is enough room left for towing with the "recent" development on the east end adjacent to North TP Road..

Thanks Sam. There's still plenty of room to tow, but once again U$HPA dropped the ball on trying to save a hang gliding site because they were bowing to the greed of the Torrey paragliding concessionaire.

This picture shows the layout of the towing strip which is owned by UCSD:

08Nov28cm.JPG (35.46 KiB) Viewed 2063 times

They used to tow sailplanes from that strip until about 10 years ago. Ed Slater was the sailplane representative to the Soaring Council in those days and he sided with David Jebb thinking that Jebb would protect the sailplane flying. Ed Slater eventually got what he deserved. Jebb only cared about his paragliding business and now there's no hang gliding training hill or sailplane flights.

We tried for years to get USHPA's help to save that site. I tried to purchase USHPA site insurance myself. I remember arguing with USHPA President Rich Hass for hours on the phone, but he wouldn't budge. USHPA always did what the Torrey concessionaire wanted.

A few years ago the training hill was leveled by bulldozers while USHPA did nothing. I took some pictures myself.

file-9.jpg (43.65 KiB) Viewed 2063 times

You didn't read about it on hanggliding.org because everyone is too chicken to speak up there. So we lost a prime training hill because there was no way to rally any significant support to save it. That's the bind that hang gliding is in, and it's being sustained by everyone who props up those organizations.

I'd better stop now before I start another wall of shame about losing that training hill.

Getting back to your point, there's plenty of physical space to tow from there if the political battles could be won.

[JoeF]

US Hawks Cyborg Faction in the New Era

If you have only a moment: 12:40 and following.
But the preamble is valuable also.