[miguel]

Dennis did contact the provider. He was given a polite rebuff.

Insurance is a world unto itself. You have to speak their language and be aware of their mores before they will take you seriously. As I said before, you need to find someone in the industry to guide you. You have the right attitude but you have to get the vibe. If you have 1K members and approach them like Clem Cadiddlehopper, you will not be taken seriously. Do seek someone out.

Seeing how you know the oldtimers, ask them how they got the insurance started.

[Bob Kuczewski]

... Clem Cadiddlehopper ...

Now there's a name that hasn't crossed my mind in many years!!!

Your age is showing ... but so is your wisdom.

Good comments on insurance. Please let us know if you know of anyone who might fill that job for us.     

[Rick Masters]

PDMC Reserve - Reverberations of Mythology by Rick Masters
September 22, 2011 Mythology of the Airframe - A Plague of Paragliders
For links, see http://www.cometclones.com/mythology2011.htm

Sep 22 - Driven by the high taxpayer cost of search party and helicopter rescues, the Veneto Region of Italy enacted legislation on September 6 to fine seriously injured high-risk sports participants up to 700 euros for air/ground intervention. However, following complaints that the service is being increasingly abused, a rescued party judged not seriously injured enough to warrant such costly rescue will be fined a maximum of 7,500 euros. (Residents of the Veneto Region will receive a 20% discount.) Rock climbers, skiers, cavers, rafters, mountain bikers, snowmobilers, hang glider pilots and hikers can all thank paraglider pilots for causing this action to become law, driven by countless examples of increasing paragliding carnage such as 30 crashes requiring rescues within seven months -- all within the vicinity of one town, Borso del Grappa. This Plague of Paragliders is not restricted to Italy. Exactly a year ago, a report from Slovenia complained "Already at the end of July we reported that this year the accident statistics for paragliders are quite black. The Mountain Rescue from Tolmin, (one of the most popular places for paragliding in Slovenia), has reported 31 accidents. For comparison, last year only 32 accidents happened during the entire year." European countries with free air-rescue policies have been a magnet for paragliding. But judging from reports I have received through private contacts, there is a growing anger among European search and Rescue organizations toward a widespread lack of responsibility among paraglider pilots. The Veneto Region's action, drafted in part by the mountain rescue service of Belluno, is only the tip of the iceberg. Free emergency rescue services will soon become a thing of the past in many popular European paragliding venues.

[Bob Kuczewski]

It would be interesting to know the HG/PG split regarding insurance claims.

One of the things I've heard is that while PG pilots might injure themselves they are less likely to injure others than a hang glider. Does anyone have any information on that?

[Rick Masters]

One of the things I've heard is that while PG pilots might injure themselves they are less likely to injure others than a hang glider. Does anyone have any information on that?

Well, on Sunday, there was this (on one day):

PDMC Reserve - A Plague of Paragliders
http://www.cometclones.com/mythology2011.htm
Oct 2 2011 - An Austrian paraglider pilot was rescued from a vertical cliff face where the glider collapsed, fell 600m and crashed on Sunday. The Search and Rescue helicopter pilot, fearful of blowing the paraglider off the cliff, landed on top and sent a team down to lower the uninjured man to the valley floor. Last year, this very same pilot had crashed into a pregnant woman hanging out laundry from her balcony in Linz, knocking her down and inflicting "contusions and abrasions." Also on Sunday, in Salto de las Rosas, Argentina, a paraglider pilot at an organized "spectacle of paragliders" lost control and collided with a 67 year-old man who was placed in intensive care suffering from injuries "to the face, back and various parts of his body."

---------------

I also have reports of pilots crashing through roofs of houses and falling vertically onto passers-by. There's one that I ran across where the poor fellow on the ground had a paraglider pilot fall onto him due to a collapse and it broke his neck. Last I heard, he was in a coma. I don't know what happened after that. Likewise, the press rarely report what happens to severely injured paraglider pilots after they are delivered to the hospital and linger for several days between life and death. The story gets old. The insurance people probably know a lot of this stuff.

[Bob Kuczewski]

Thanks for that information. It might be helpful when we begin to look for insurance.

[Rick Masters]

In the growing struggle to keep down public-financed search and rescue expenses in popular paragliding venues, Spain has now joined Italy in preparing fees to be implemented by the Servicio de Emergencias Sanitarias. A recent study of rescues reported that 40% are the result of "negligent action of the victim," a finding similar to Italy's. The Director of the Civil Protection Agency of Castilla y León, Luis Aznar, said "people who currently go deep into the mountain in an irresponsible way will think before they do, because this will affect their pocket." Echoing the complaints of Italy's search and rescue services, Aznar complained that in some cases victims exercised the luxury of asking rescuers to bring them by helicopter to the place where they had parked a vehicle. "Abuses occur," he resolved. The new fees can exceed 1900 euros and will also apply to mountaineering, skiing, water sports and, of course, hang gliding. I guess I'm not the only one who thinks it is irresponsible for hordes of people on crummy l/d wings that tend to collapse all the time (even when there are safer, high l/d wings called hang gliders available) to head out on cross country attempts -- and then when they have problems, expect the taxpayers of their hosting country to bail them out.

PDMC RESERVE - A Plague of Paragliders
Oct 8, 2011 Mythology of the Airframe http://www.cometclones.com/mythology2011.htm

[Rick Masters]

Oct 16 - Meet Thomas Sacher, the poster boy of the new paragliding paradigm. Sacher represents the essence of what paragliding has unfortunately become: a parasite upon the right of free men to pursue their dreams without government interference. Participants of extreme sports in a free society are often considered entitled by that society to a certain level of protection and compassion because free-thinkers and risk-takers provide a vital vibrance and vision to societal evolution. But in return, they are expected to exhibit a certain level of responsibility and ethical behavior to avoid becoming a burden upon that society. Hang glider pilots have, for the most part, evidenced this responsibility for decades. But the tide of financial retribution now sweeping across Europe, driven by a desperate necessity to meet the escalating expenses of search and rescue operations, is in large part a response to to a horde of irresponsible, inconsiderate and seemingly sociopathological paraglider pilots. Sacher first found media fame by colliding with a pregnant woman on the balcony of her apartment in Linz in 2010 during a paragliding competition. Then on October 2, he experienced a collapse and miraculously landed on a high cliff ledge. He requested a helicopter rescue, but for some reason, he did not pack up his paraglider.

When the helicopter arrived, the helicopter pilot chose not to lift Sacher off the ledge out of fear the sail could entangle itself in the rotor blades, causing the helicopter to crash and potentially kill everyone on board. The helicopter then landed above the cliff, high above Sacher, and sent down a mountain rescue team to lift him by rope. Despite his protestations, they refused to haul his gear - his paraglider - off the mountain. But they did carry him to safety. Then, on October 16, Sacher enlisted a friend to help him extricate his paraglider from the cliff face. According to reports, they started late, collected the paraglider, but then claiming they were trapped and faced with nightfall, called for another helicopter rescue to take them off the mountain. A search and rescue helicopter arrived, technically unable to refuse such a request, and plucked Sacher, his paraglider and his friend from the mountain. Now accusations arise, angrily, not just from Austria, but from Italy and Spain, while other countries watch, that paragliders are misusing emergency services to the extent of incorporating them as an element of their sport. This reaction has severe implications, not just for Europe but for North America and beyond, for search and rescue response, free-flight site security and insurance availability. Again, I cannot emphasize enough that hang glider pilots must distance themselves from paragliding or they risk losing what little remains for them.

Rick Masters
Mythology of the Airframe
A Plague of Paragliders
October 11, 2011
http://www.cometclones.com/mythology2011.htm

[Bob Kuczewski]

Again, I cannot emphasize enough that hang glider pilots must distance themselves from paragliding or they risk losing what little remains for them.

Hi Rick,

We are a hang gliding association. That's what it says at the top of every page:

        "US Hawks Hang Gliding Association"

In fact, as far as I know, we're the most active national Hang Gliding Association in the United States at this time. There's as much distance between us and paragliding as there is between us and base jumping. But we don't criticize either unless they are actively harming hang gliding.

I'll give you an example. In San Diego, many paragliding accidents were often reported in the news as "hang gliding" accidents (quite possibly by intentional mis-reporting, but this hasn't been proven). So some of our Torrey Hawks members began calling and correcting media outlets when they mis-reported these accidents. The result is that now paragliding accidents are being called paragliding accidents at a much higher rate than they were before. That's what we endorse.

But that doesn't mean that we actively try to stomp out paragliding (or base jumping or SCUBA diving or anything else). We want to promote and protect the sport of hang gliding, but we don't have to oppose other sports unless they directly impact our ability to safely enjoy and grow the sport of hang gliding.

But as I've said to Tad over and over - it won't matter what our policies are if we don't grow. Right now we don't have enough membership for anyone to care what we support or oppose. If we really want to be effective in promoting hang gliding, then we'll need some help in growing our membership. That falls on each of our members. Please contact your friends and fellow club members. Please post links to this site. Please post good interesting comments to this site. If we want to be able to influence anything we'll need more members. It's as simple as that.

Thanks for posting!!