Thanks for the thanks.


First of all, I don't even like that we've gotten to the point where "instruction" by anyone is considered a forbidden activity. If I want to learn to surf, anyone can teach me. I can choose whether I want to get my "instruction" from some surfer dude for free or to pay a "qualified" instructor. The same is true of almost all other "semi-dangerous" sports like water skiing, snow skiing, and even SCUBA Diving. The last one (SCUBA diving) is particularly relevant. I believe that anyone can teach anyone else how to SCUBA dive. There's no restriction on who is "qualified" to teach and who is not. The restriction comes from who is allowed to issue which ratings. For instance, a PADI (Professional Association of Diving Instructors) instructor issues a PADI rating card. A NAUI (National Association of Underwater Instructors) instructor issues a NAUI rating card. The prospective SCUBA diving student can choose whether he wants to learn from PADI (and get his tanks filled by PADI dive shops) or learn from NAUI (and get his tanks filled by NAUI dive shops) or learn from Joe down the street and buy his own compressor. That's the free enterprise system in operation. There's plenty of information available (especially on-line) for that prospective student to make their own choice and live with the consequences. The problem we have in hang gliding is that there's only one national association, and so we get led to believe that they hold the magic keys to the sky. They don't. They only sell insurance.


No, no, and no. There was no agreement to teach new skills ... only the practice of honing existing skills - which she was already allowed to practice on her own at that very same location. There was no exchange of goods or favors for anything. I was helping a friend who had felt she was not getting sufficient help from the people she had paid to help her (I was essentially doing the concession's job that they had neglected to do). There was no earning of any rating underway either.


I believe that's what the police recognized when they refused to remove me from the premise. I was speaking my suggestions on kiting, and my friend was free to use that speech or reject it. She welcomed the speech (it was not unwanted harassment in any way).


This is the essence of you, my friend. You are always open to breathing in what the world can teach you. Whether it's the stem in a leaf or an equation beyond my comprehension. You are open to the world and it's a wonderful thing. Let's see if we can keep the world open to you as well.

Oops, we were typing at the same time, and you pushed "Submit" before I did.


If there is a "life after death" heaven for true hang glider pilots, you have just described it. In that version of heaven, there are only good sincere pilots forever learning and respecting themselves, each other, and the air. The fact that you would dare to write such a thing on a public forum immensely increases my respect for you as a person of high value, Joe.

Unfortunately, back here on earth, we have to make compromises to allow for the greed, selfishness, and plain old irresponsibility of real people. So I think we're in a never-ending battle to push on our side of the boundary between freedom and tyranny. I don't think Torrey will ever be what you and I would imagine in our best dreams. The forces of greed are too strong and too ubiquitous to ever be banished. The best we can do is to try to keep those forces in check so we can fly our dreams within wider margins than they would otherwise allow.

That's how I see my ongoing work with the Torrey Hawks and the US Hawks. I don't think we will ever "win". Instead, we will always provide the watchdog and the pressure to keep things from getting too bad. Things had gotten too bad under Jebb. Jebb had pushed things to the point where it was easy for many people to see that it needed fixing. Since Jebb has gone, it's not so clear how bad it is, and that makes the job harder. But the job still needs to be done. The price of freedom really is eternal vigilance.

Let me say THANKS to both of you. We might not win all the battles, but IMO, you two are winners. And Loserville? We know that is elsewhere.

,
Sam

Thanks to you as well, Sam!!! We're all on the same team and I appreciate your work in Texas and your support at Torrey!

I've got a little more time, so let me be a little more explicit in some of my responses to Joe's questions...


Yes. Fort Funston is a popular coastal site in the highly populated San Francisco area. They have no concession, no sales, and no instruction. They are operated by a club and they seem to exist just fine.

They have a more rounded launch area, and I believe they are able to allow H-2 pilots to fly there. They've separated the paraglider traffic which is limited to another part of the cliff, so only hang gliding is allowed at Fort Funston itself.


You're right there as well. That's why I've been so involved in getting the Soaring Council going again. It doesn't seem too likely that we might get rid of the concession (and I think the concession does provide some benefits), but a concession without oversight is a recipe for disaster. And we've seen one disaster after another at Torrey.


That's one of the biggest problems. All "pre-pilots" that come to Torrey get turned into paragliding pilots. They push paragliding as being so easy (just hop into a harness and begin) and hang gliding as being almost impossible (go find an instructor out in the boonies and wait a few years while you accumulate the hours for an H4). If you come to Torrey to fly, it will be hard to pass up the easy lure of paragliding for the long uncertain road toward hang gliding. That's why the SDHGPA has become mostly a paragliding club and San Diego is becoming a largely paragliding town. That's also why the Torrey Hawks are so important on the Soaring Council. As long as hang gliding is represented by a combined HG/PG club (like USHPA and SDHGPA), then the growing majority of paragliders will have their way and hang gliding will have effectively zero representation.

"JoeF,----
Is it time for hang gliders to use ambient wind, anchor offshore, kite to altitude, glide downwind to meet Torrey's orographic lift, soar about, and land out to a club raft at sea? Forget the TPGP grass-controlled concession. Boycott the concession......."

No! Joe it is way past time!
The only show in Minnesota in the early 80’s was Boris Poppov in Minneapolis if you were looking for a HG rating.
Boris stood me up after confirming, over the phone, that I could go with one of his instructors to a training hill and demonstrate my abilities gained from hundreds of tow flights and about one hundred foot launch flights.

After driving over two hundred miles, (Pre Interstate 35) taking about five and a half hours, ----- “We won’t be able to do it this weekend,” Boris told me.

So he told me that I would have to join USHGA for $47.00/yr and NSG club for $20.00 (Guessing, trying to remember, at these cost at this late date.) Then my three year old Moyes Midi was, “Virtually obsolete!” So I would have to rent a glider and the hill and the instructor (if he would have been there--) and of course there would be a rating cost----

I told him that I was going to go home and the next time I came down I would have my boat and I would tow up in front of all of the Mississippi River sites at Lake Pepin and fly them all for NOTHING!!!! And I did too!
(NANNY NANNY BOO!)

That reminds me of the story about the founding of PADI (Professional Association of Dive Instructors). At that time, NAUI (and maybe the YMCA?) were the predominant SCUBA certification agencies. Today, I think PADI is the leader.

Here's a quote from divinghistory.com:

Let's hope that history can repeat itself ... again.     

Fast Forward to November 9th, 2014 ...

In the final paragraph of my opening post (from May 15, 2012), I wrote:



Now we know what those "next steps" will be: abusing our workplace protection laws to keep selected pilots from documenting what's going on at Torrey Pines. See the recent topic about being jailed for taking pictures at Torrey for more details:

http://ushawks.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=1629

There is no longer a national hang gliding organization in the US. There is a PG organization run by PG pilots and instructors and tandem operators that pay lip service to recreational hang glider pilots because it must draw on the success of hang gliding's safety record to present a false picture to the public about paragliding.

Its primary purpose is to expand paragliding while it buys the goodwill of hang gliding clubs by offering site insurance. Its primary goal is to increase the sales of paragliders - many made in Asia with a huge mark-up - while it buys the goodwill of tandem HG operators by providing them with a loophole through FAA restrictions that enables monetary profit. Its primary focus is to train more parachutists while it buys the goodwill of a few HG instructors by restricting instruction to its own agents and it shielding the profits it helps to generate by preventing outside instruction. This was made abundantly clear a few years ago when the Special Observer rating was terminated.

The USHGA died on the day Russ Locke and the BOD voted to allow parachuting into our hang gliding organization. The membership didn't understand the danger or the ramifications. The U$hPA has methodically consolidated its hold on freeflight in the US ever since PG enthusiasts seized control of the Board of Directors. It is a paragliding advocacy business and it wants your money. If it cared about encouraging the sport of hang gliding it would never have prevented qualified individuals from training pilots outside of U$hPA-certified schools. Hang gliding has always been grass-roots. We trained our drivers - a vitally important trade-off in the evolution of our sport. And the U$hPA would never have de-legitimized our hard-won structural integrity accomplishments, our foundation of safety and pride, to allow the embrace of parachuting. It never would have become secretive or silent on sensitive issues. It is a racket, now, and you are all part of that racket.

You're all part of it. (Except maybe for Joe and me.) You all fund it. You all whine and cry for it to be more responsive to your needs. You all send it the big bucks. (Question: How many U$hPA membership fees would be required to pay the insurance for your site? Yeah. Three.)

But it does not want to hear your noise. It wants you to shut up so it can make money. Its controlling elite makes most of their money by training potential hang glider pilots to fly soaring parachutes, by selling them paragliders and equipment so they can progress to turbulent air (where they eventually often maim or kill themselves), and by selling tandem joyrides to the public under the guise of instruction.

If you want to change anything, you don't need to talk to them. You need to talk to the pilots, especially now that the U$hPA is persecuting BobK through the Torrey concessionaire. Remember, above all else, BobK sought to replace the U$hPA with a representative organization harkening back to the USHGA. They would like to grind BobK under their thumbs.

In the early years, the national org was responsive to (guess who?) the clubs. Today, the U$hPA seem mostly responsive to itself. Time to change.

Rick,

Once again a very insightful post. Actually it's obvious stuff. It's just that blinders have been pulled over so many eyes.

I would like you to know though, that I (one more to add to your list) do not send any funds to the USHPA. As of March 2012 I am an X member of the "Association". They refused to serve my interests as a 37 year long pilot of hang gliders. Were I still flying, this coming new year would mark my 40th year as an HG pilot. But the dysfunction of the USHPA has destroyed the sport for me.

More than that, my local clubs (RAF and FSF), one influencing the other, have acted (as Air California Adventure Inc. has acted against Bob K) with harassment and defamation - because of my outspoken nature.

What did I speak out about? The fact that a (non) land owner (who claims to be a launch site owner) actually has no authority to limit flight from the site to only 4 (summer) months a year. I discovered Yates County, NY Real Property Tax info that shows that his land ends 100 yards NNW of the SSE facing launch site. The Rochester Area Flyers Club (a USHPA Chapter, BTW) harassed me until I quit their club. Why? Because, get this, if the (non) land owner found out what I knew, he would kick everybody out of the launch site (that he doesn't even own). Insanity seems to be running rampant these days!

Time to cool down a bit. Later.

That is a great great post Rick!!!     

I hold my nose as I renew with USHPA every year. If I had another option, believe me, I would take it.

My goal is to return the sport of hang gliding to the pilots and clubs just as you've mentioned. For better or worse, I can do that much more effectively if I can fly at sites from coast to coast and talk to the pilots there. That requires USHPA membership, so I hold my nose and pay it. I run for Regional Director every year which gives me a small platform to ask for things like open voting by the board and fairness for our clubs. That requires USHPA membership, so I hold my nose and pay it. Our club has been asking for site insurance at Torrey Pines. USHPA hasn't given it, but at least we have the ability to openly request it. Again, that requires USHPA membership, and again I hold my nose and pay it.



Rick, truer words were never spoken. The US Hawks will hopefully fill the vacuum that USHPA is creating by abandoning the founding principles of a national PILOT's association. And that's not Bob Kuczewski's organization. That's Rick Masters' organization, and Bill Cummings' organization, and Sam Kellner's organization, and Eagle's organization, and Joe Faust's organization, and Robin Hastings' organization, and Charlie Schneider's organization, and Jerry Worsencroft's organization, and Phil Sergent's organization, and Frank Colver's organization, and Neil Larson's organization, and Michael Giles' organization, and John Coyier's organization, and so many others. When we finally come up with our bylaws, I want them to resemble the Constitution of the United States. I want them to have founding principles which shall not be violated. I want them to have checks and balances to keep anyone from seizing too much power. I want them to be bylaws that will be short enough (like the Constitution) for people to actually be able to read them ... and understand them!!

That's what we're working to build here, and anyone who believes in that goal is welcome.    

I know right now it seems like this is just Bob's version of Davis's Oz Report or Jack's ".org". That's somewhat true right now, but we have a goal here that they do not share. You never hear Davis or Jack saying that when they get enough active members they're going to create a Board of Directors and turn control over to them. That's not their goal. That's what makes us different. We are working to get to the point where we can really be an organization of the pilots, by the pilots, and for the pilots. That's where we want to go, and the sooner we can build up enough critical mass the sooner that will happen.