[JoeF]

Jack Lambie

[JoeF]

Volmer Jensen

[JoeF]

Richard Miller

[JoeF]

One assist page for links to discussion files for HUSH members of US Hawks:
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Add to the stories of HUSH members ...

[JoeF]

Ed Gardia or Ed Guardia {?} died in early 1970s, a probably-first fatality in recreational hang gliding in US.
His Sylmar area dive fatality spurred rapid study of reflex for dive recovery.
Luffing dive from significant altitude was caught on Super8 film; I do not know were the film is.
We studied the film.

Today I found this print:

EdGuardia889-6ByGeorgeUveges.jpg (55.7 KiB) Viewed 23969 times

[Frank Colver]

In my memory Ed Guardia, the first modern sport HG fatality (US, at least), died from flying into a pine tree at a ski resort near Tahoe. Are we talking about the same guy?

Frank

[JoeF]

Not same guy in your memory.
Lloyd Licher, a few others, and myself studied the luffing-dive of Ed G.
What he hit on the ground in Sylmar area would not matter; the dive speed was considerable.
Straight down from high.

[Rick Masters]

I have Ed Gardia listed as HG fatality #12 in September 28, 1972. See the clipping from the Reno Gazette the next day below.
A lot of towing was going in before that.
Two guys died on tow in July and August in the US. Two on boat tow in May - D.C. and France. All rogallos.
One on car tow in Florida in April. These guys had all probably been free-flying after release.
So I couldn't say Gardia was the first.
The first six might have been in Australia. Flat ski kites, maybe, except rogallos were suddenly catching on like wildfire.
I'm thinking rogallos because they had more area than ski kites and were easier to break on tow. I don't know. Still trying to verify these.



So Joe, I wonder who was the guy who got killed at Sylmar?
I think R.V. Wills got confused and wrote in Ground Skimmer that Gardia had died at Sylmar .
Maybe that film was taken at Slide.

[JoeF]

Rick, the matter on Gardia seems clarified by your good research in newspapers.
I must back off the notes and leave open the Sylmar question.
Perhaps Wills and I were forwarding "Sylmar" for "Slide" in error.

Edward R. Gardia
Employed as public works manager for the City of Lynwood.
Buried in Holy Cross Cemetery in Los Angeles.
Accident site: At or near Slide Mountain, Nevada.

Slide Mountain general photo======================================================
Another: "near" Slide Mountain:
In June of 2015, another Ed, but as Edgar Higgins,
http://www.rgj.com/story/news/2015/06/26/hang-glider-found-dead-near-slide-mountain/29379087/

============================
A Slide Mtn. HG video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9lldWjGGERg
========================
Frank, your guy in memory was matching Rick's clarified pilot.
Source of my focus on "Sylmar" Is now unclear; see above.
Thanks.
=============================

[Frank Colver]

Yeah, it was as I said, Ed flew into a pine tree at a ski resort which I thought was named Slide Mountain but I wasn't sure of the name so I didn't say it in my previous reply. Once I saw it in Rick's reply then I knew for sure I was remembering Ed's death correctly. I didn't see any reports at the time that said anything about a dive before hitting the pine tree so I don't think a non-recoverable dive was involved in the accident. Every thing I heard verbally was that he just flew into the tree.

Ed's death was a real sadness for me because he was the first hang glider flyer that I knew personally and had flown with, at various sites, who got killed in the sport. Unfortunately there were more friends deaths to come in the next few years.

Frank