USHPA Pilot Vol49-Iss4 Jul/Aug 2019

July/August 2019 Volume 49 Issue 4 $6.95 UNITED STATES HANG GLIDING AND PARAGLIDING ASSOCIATION

Learn to Fly Join the Community Develop Skills to be Safe

NEW PILOT

ISSUE

H A N G

G L I D I N G

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P A R A G L I D I N G

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USHPA PILOT 3

BOARD OF DIRECTORS 1 NORTHWEST [ AK∙HI∙IA∙ID∙MN∙MT∙ND∙NE∙OR∙SD∙WA∙WY ] Mark Forbes Doyle Johnson Randall Shane Owen Shoemaker

ON THE COVER LEFT Mathias Kuffer at the Swiss Open, Appenzell, Switzerland.

RIGHT A Redbull X-Alps particpant flying in Austria. Photo courtesy of Redbull Photofiles.

Martin Palmaz, Executive Director executivedirector@ushpa.org Beth Van Eaton, Operations Manager office@ushpa.org Erika Klein, Communications Manager communications@ushpa.org Chris Webster, Information Services Manager tech@ushpa.org Galen Anderson, Membership Coordinator membership@ushpa.org OFFICERS Alan Crouse, President president@ushpa.org Randall Shane, Vice President vicepresident@ushpa.org Ken Andrews, Secretary secretary@ushpa.org Mark Forbes, Treasurer treasurer@ushpa.org

2 CENTRAL WEST [ Northern CA∙NV∙UT ] Neil Hansen Steve Rodrigues 3 SOUTHWEST [ Southern CA∙AZ∙CO∙NM ] Ken Andrews Alan Crouse Ken Grubbs Greg Kelley 4 SOUTHEAST [ AL∙AR∙DC∙FL∙GA∙KS∙KY∙LA∙MO∙MS∙NC∙OK∙SC∙TN∙TX∙WV∙VA ] Larry Dennis Kate Griffin Daniel Lukaszewicz Tiki Mashy Matt Taber Bruce Weaver 5 NORTHEAST & INTERNATIONAL [ CT∙DE∙IL∙IN∙MA∙MD∙ME∙MI∙NH∙NY∙NY∙OH∙PA∙RI∙VT∙WI ] Felipe Amunategui Mike Holmes Paul Voight

The United States Hang Gliding and Paragliding Association Inc. (USHPA) is an air sports organization affiliated with the National Aeronautic Association (NAA), which is the official representative of the Fédération Aeronautique Internationale (FAI), of the world governing body for sport aviation. The NAA, which represents the United States at FAI meetings, has delegated to the USHPA supervision of FAI-related hang gliding and paragliding activities such as record attempts and competition sanctions. The United States Hang Gliding and Paragliding Association, a division of the National Aeronautic Association, is a representative of the Fédération Aeronautique Internationale in the United States.

For change of address or other USHPA business +1 (719) 632-8300 info@ushpa.org POSTMASTER USHPA Pilot ISSN 1543-5989 (USPS 17970) is published bimonthly by the United States Hang Gliding and Paragliding Association, Inc., 1685 W. Uintah St., Colorado Springs, CO, 80904 Phone: (719) 632-8300 Fax: (719) 632-6417 Periodicals Postage Paid in Colorado Springs and additional mailing offices. Send change of address to: USHPA, PO Box 1330, Colorado Springs, CO, 80901-1330. Canadian Return Address: DP Global Mail, 4960-2 Walker Road, Windsor, ON N9A 6J3.

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USHPA PILOT 5

Flight Plan [ Editor > NICK GREECE ]

Martin Palmaz, Publisher executivedirector@ushpa.org Nick Greece, Editor editor@ushpa.org / advertising@ushpa.org Greg Gillam, Art Director art.director@ushpa.org C.J. Sturtevant, Copy Editor copy@ushpa.org PHOTOGRAPHERS Jeff Shapiro

STAFF WRITERS Annette O’Neil Dennis Pagen Jeff Shapiro C.J. Sturtevant

SUBMISSIONS from our members and readers are welcome. All articles, artwork, photographs as well as ideas for articles, artwork and photographs are submitted pursuant to and are subject to the USHPA Contributor's Agreement, a copy of which can be obtained from the USHPA by emailing the editor at editor@ushpa.org or online at www.ushpa.org. We are always looking for great articles, photography and news. Your contributions are appreciated.

ADVERTISING is subject to the USHPA Advertising Policy, a copy of which may be obtained from the USHPA by emailing advertising@ushpa.org.

COPYRIGHT ©2019 US HANG GLIDING & PARAGLIDING ASSOC., INC. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise without prior written permission of USHPA.

Flying hang gliders and paragliders is good for your health. Starting in the early 2000’s, significant research has been done on the effects fostered by awe. Free flight pilots experience what scientists call the “small self” created by participation. Flying without an engine around extraordinary landscapes, like birds, and interacting with a vast environment in a uniquely beautiful way produces significant levels of awe.

According to Summer Allen, Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkeley, a feeling of awe fosters an increased sense of connectedness, a decrease in materialism, and an increase in critical thinking and positive mood. Experiencing awe leads to a genuine feeling of mindfulness that shifts our focus away from ourselves toward a feeling of being part of a larger whole For those of you who are looking to get into this sport, take it from the experienced faithful that you will constantly be in awe. Each and every flight provides nearly infinite possibilities and variations to create these highly desirable opportunities for personal growth. More good news for those just starting out is that due to a lack of sample size for comparison, every flight, no matter the length, or height, is full of awe.

For pilots who are already in the sport, cherish the flights that stand out in your mind and give a moment of consideration toward how they’ve affected your overall global outlook.

The July/August magazine begins with a challenging flying adventure from Anneka Herndon who, with Lisa Dickinson, sent it up a course line flying from hotel to hotel for days on end, collecting key life experiences along the way.

Sara Weaver is back with a “how-to” on hang gliding competition flying to help future prospects transition into one of the greatest games on the planet—racing hang gliders.

This issue features two college clubs that are developing programs to create new pilots who will be in the sport for years to come. We are excited by their initiative. The University of Utah has a burgeoning paragliding club and Virginia Tech has a thriving hang gliding movement; we hope the word will spread.

Annette O’Neil checks in with two legends. The first, an interview with one of USHPA’s, and America’s, most accomplished pilots—Mark “Forger” Stucky.

Forger pilots Virgin Galactic’s spaceships, as well as a hang glider and paraglider in his free time. The other piece focuses on Malcolm Wood and his work towards helping the world visualize climate change from a paraglider’s perspective.

Ben White chimes in with a detailed and thoughtful article on mentorship and specific suggestions on how to be a good mentee.

Honza Remanjek presents an educational primer on how to read the weather. For every pilot—especially those who are starting out—the key to success and safety in free flight is being able to engineer your environment, beginning with flying in conditions that are appropriate for one’s skill level.

Calef Latorney sends in a piece on working with landowners to secure permission to fly from their land, and CJ Sturtevant interviews Bruce Weaver and Matt Tabor on how they turned their passion into thriving careers that allow them to continue working outside and in a field they love.

All of the USHPA editorial staff welcome you to the free-flight community and hope you find this sport, the flying sites, and the people as awe-inspiring as we do.

2019 July/August CONTENTS

18

8 HELLO, PILOTS 10 LAUNCHING 13 FINDING LIFT 60 RATINGS 62 CALENDAR 63 CLASSIFIED 64 FINAL

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36

14 TRAVEL

Viva Vol Hotel

Bivy-Flying in Colombia!

by ANNEKA HERNDON 18 COMPETITION

Hang Gliding

Skills for new competition pilots

by SARA WEAVER 46 TRAINING

Mentorship is an Art-Form Lending a Hand

by BEN WHITE

50 42 24 VIRGINIA TECH HG CLUB

College Hang Gliding Clubs are popping up around the US!

50 GEAR

56 36 CHASING THE LAST GLACIERS

by ANNETTE O'NEIL

Malcolm Wood is on a mission to show the world what climate change looks like­—from a birds-eye-view

36 LOOKING FORWARD

42 FREEFLIGHT COMMUNITY

by ANNETTE O'NEIL

by STEVE MAMMANO

Mark "Forger" Stucky pilots hang gliders, paragliders and Virgin Galactic's Spaceship­

by ANNETTE O'NEIL

Univerisity of Utah's Paragliding Club Sets its sites on building the ultimate collegiate community!

Hyper Fun!

A vario packed with features and the size of a deck of cards

by JEFF SHAPIRO 54 WEATHER

Weather to Fly

Weather Forecasting 101

by HONZA REJMANEK 56 TRAINING

Living the Dream Work to Live

by C.J. STURTEVANT

HANG GLIDING AND PAR AGLIDING ARE INHERENTLY DANGEROUS ACTIVITIES

USHPA recommends pilots complete a pilot training program under the direct supervision of a USHPA-certified instructor, using safe equipment suitable for your level of experience. Many of the articles and photographs in the magazine depict advanced maneuvers being performed by experienced, or expert, pilots. These maneuvers should not be attempted without the prerequisite instruction and experience.

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USHPA PILOT 7

The Joy of Flying

The Intermediate Classic

The EPSILON 9 combines performance, safety and precision in equal measure. The ADVANCE Intermediate Classic is for those many pilots who want to enjoy their flying – an easy-to-fly, good performing wing with a high feelgood factor – whether a long-serving thermal pilot with cross country ambitions, or just the fun flyer who relishes of the latest technology to enhance performance and user-friendliness – and your safety. Enjoy! www.advance.ch /epsilon

distributor: superflyinc.com info@superflyinc.com 801-255-9595

Picture: Adi Geisegger

the joy of flight. This EPSILON 9 includes most

Hello, Pilots

[ President, USHPA > ALAN CROUSE ]

Welcome to the tribe!

Greetings to all our new pilots! Many of you have just experienced your first tandem or have just learned to fly for yourself. As president of the United States Hang Gliding and Paragliding Association, I would like to warmly welcome you to our sky family! I remember my first flight 18 years ago as if it were yesterday. The amazement of those first steps when my feet left the ground and the wing lifted me into the sky is unforgettable. Memories of my first training flight from the (seemingly immensely high) 50-foot training hill, the anticipation of my first solo flight, and the receipt of my first rating to fly without an instructor are still key life experiences that rank among the best of the best.

Long before I took up flying, I learned to drive in a parking lot. I could accelerate and brake, turn and even parallel park, but before I could

󲢫 Every pilot is an ambassador of our magnificent sport, and as such is our organization’s greatest asset. 󲢻 take my new-found skills into the “real world” and actually go somewhere, I needed a license.

In hang gliding, USHPA provides that ticket to roam, not only in the US, but also anywhere in the world I want to visit and fly. The ratings and skills you accumulate are honored at every USHPA certified site in the US, from Yosemite, California to Ellenville, New York, as well as garner recipocity with numerous foreign free flight associations.

USHPA members comprise a miniscule percentage of the US population—about 0.003%.

And yet we compete for access to airspace, launches, landing zones and visibility with land development, other forms of aviation, adventure sports, and technological innovations, such as drones. How do we survive as a sport? First, and most importantly, we depend on individual actions of every single pilot as they interact with landowners, the public, the media, the inquisitive, regulatory bodies, and even friends and family. Every pilot is an ambassador of our magnificent sport, and as such is our organization’s greatest asset. The opportunity for our small group of pilots to engage with grace is crucial, especially since the public has limited 8 US HPA P I LOT

exposure to us. The one pilot who asks permission before entering a property, is friendly and appreciative, picks up more trash than he/she brought, and explains what the sport is about, may be the only pilot that landowner has ever met. They set the stage for us to build a good, long relationship!

The second major resource in preserving our wondrous free-flight sport is USHPA. Our tiny sport bands with the Federal Aviation Administration, international sporting bodies such as the FAI, other sports associations, and a multitude of state and federal agencies in order to maintain our access to the skies. In recent years, this included the creation of a separate insurance provider, the Recreation Risk Retention Group, which ensured that third-party liability, landowner site insurance, and commercial coverage for our instructors would continue to be available. USHPA is a member-run organization, and I encourage all members to volunteer and take part in the process. Working on the critical issues that face our sports and lifestyles and becoming a part of the decisions that work to improve free-flight in the US is a very exciting proposition.

Your instructor is your primary information source during your formal training, and often well beyond. USHPA instructors frequently anchor their local flying community and are respected for their flying skills, teaching, and general flight knowledge. The social aspect of free flight is essential to building healthy clubs, flying communities, and continuing education through mentorship from more experienced peers. Sharing knowledge regarding sites, weather, trips, equipment, and just swapping stories after a day in the sky are often only second to the thrill of flying itself.

As you continue to advance in your freeflight lifestyle I hope that, when possible, you will seek to volunteer to help your club, your community, your region, and your organization, USHPA. We are a small group, but we share a mighty passion!

To all of you, welcome to the skies, and fly safe!

Alan Crouse President, USHPA

USHPA PILOT 9

BASETUBE STICKERS $1.00

STORE

Durable all-weather vinyl decals

USHPA Flight Jacket $149.95

USHPA T-SHIRT: SWIPE $14.95 100% cotton tee that's light and comfortable to move in.

Available in Black, Garnet Red, and Natural.

Durable soft shell jackets by Marmot are water-repellent, windproof, and breathable. Stand-up collar with zipper chin guard, zippered chest pocket w/ headphone port, zippered hand pockets, LYCRA bound cuffs.

Mens - Gray and Womens - Black, with embroidered USHPA logo on the front and “U.S. Hang Gliding & Paragliding Assn” on the back.

GIVE US YOUR BEST SHOTS! SUBMIT YOUR PHOTOS FOR THE 2020 CALENDAR at USHPA.ORG/CALENDAR

All this and more at USHPASTORE.com

Launching

[ The Latest Gear ]

The OZONE ZEOLITE is a totally new 2-liner designed for the needs of the race. With a moderate aspect ratio of 6.7 and 64 cells, it offers the ease of launch and tolerance to low speed required to deal with the challenges of the terrain. At 2.85kg (size S), it is the lightest glider in the field. It comes with a new backpack inspired by trail-running models.

More info: www.ozoneparagliders.com.

The OZONE F*RACE is inspired by the F*Lite. It has no metallic parts apart from the pulleys and comes with a foam protector. It is a stable and comfortable platform for the long flights awaiting the athletes. It weighs 1350 grams. More info at www.ozoneparagliders.com.

New OZONE ANGEL SQ PRO square parachute, based on the AngelSQ series, is possibly the lightest certified parachute in the market at just over 900 grams. It comes with a new lightweight pod and is very easy to pack. More info at www.ozoneparagliders.com.

NOVA adds RED as new special color to the color range of their EN-B wing ION 5 LIGHT at no extra charge. The lightweight wing (starting at 3.1 kg) is now available in four colors and six sizes from XXXS to L (corresponding to a recommended take-off weight of 50 to 130 kg). More info at www.nova.eu/ion-5-light.

APCO announced the release of their new tandem, the GAME MARK 2 (MKII). It is available in two sizes, 42 and 39, and comes with a new riser system with replaceable trimmer webbing. More info: www. apcoaviation.com/.

The FREEDOM is FLOW PARAGLIDERS’ high EN B, designed for the explorer, traveler, and vol-biv pilot to traverse the unknown safely. Flow claims the Freedom is a sophisticated glider with a balance between performance, passive safety, and playful handling. Weight reduction, easy no-wind inflations, and smaller packing volume were also focused on by the design team. Contact liftparagliding.com for details.

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USH PA PILOT 11

EAGLE’S UNISEX HYPER-LOFT PUFF JACKET has plush warmth for all seasons.

With a nylon shell, Hyper-Loft synthetic insulation, zippered pockets, and a packable inside chest pocket, the versatile functions make it ready for any adventure in the air and on the ground. Visit eagleparagliding.com/shop/ to order.

EAGLE PARAGLIDING WOMEN’S T-SHIRTS AND TANK TOPS come in a variety of colors and sizes. Support the ladies in our sport, and perhaps the lady in your life. All female paraglider pilots stopping by our full-service inspection and repair shop in Santa Barbara will get an Eagle T-shirt or tank on the house. Visit eagleparagliding.com/shop/ to order.

Eagle paragliding has a new batch of American-Made MEN’S EAGLE PARAGLIDING T-SHIRTS. Choose from a variety of colors and sizes. Visit

eagleparagliding.com/ shop/ to order.

NIVIUK has released their 5th generation of aerobatic glider range, the N-GRAVITY 5.

Niviuk claims that the Gravity 5 is the result of Niviuk’s collaboration with top-level acro experts. They describe it as agile and dynamic, with precise maneuverability. More info: eagleparagliding. com/shop/.

NIVIUK has released the HOOK 5 which they state is an EN-B wing suitable for new pilots coming out of school, yet one the student will not outgrow for years.

Designed for easy and intuitive handling, stability, and simple inflations with the goal to give new pilots confidence. Visit

eagleparagliding.com/ shop/ for details.

UP has released the UP KIBO 2, which they claim has direct handling and a softer canopy design that allows more passive safety and feedback than its predecessor. UP implemented the speed system from their successful performance-oriented Trango X-Race, Meru, and GURU. The Kibo 2 is engineered with positive and negative 3-D panel shaping to create a clean and low-drag leading edge. Visit eagleparagliding.com/shop/ for details.

UP SPEED SLEEVES The “FZ” (short for “Full Zip”) speed top features a full-length zipper, to make it easier and more convenient to get on and off. It is made from 80% polyamide and 20% elastane, provides moderate warmth, and comes in sizes M, L or XL. More info: eagleparagliding.com/shop/.

FLYTEC USA is pleased to announce the all-new NAVITER BLADE flight instrument for hang gliding. The Blade is perfectly suited for pilots who want all of the functionality to win competitions, set that next record, or simply enjoy safe cross-country flights. All relevant flight info is presented on a detailed color moving map complete with roads, ground features, airspace and topography. The Blade also features an integrated pitot airspeed with total energy compensation. As most experienced pilots will tell you, the cost of using an inferior flight instrument is the loss of many flying hours, miles flown and tasks won. The sooner you start flying with an instrument that truly assists you in making the right decisions, the longer and more enjoyable your flights will become. The Blade, when used in combination with SeeYou software, developed for the gliding and free-flight community over nearly 20 years, is the complete package offering pre-flight planning, in-flight navigation, and post-flight analysis. The Blade has been developed in cooperation with some of the best hang glider pilots worldwide, including Alex Ploner, Tom Weissenberger, Matja? Klemen?i?, France Peternelj and others! For more information, please visit www.flytec.com or email info@flytec.com.

BRUCE GOLDSMITH DESIGN is pleased to announce the release of their new EN-B gliders, the PUNK, and its lightweight counterpart, the RIOT. Utilizing Bruce’s progressive-stability design and famous handling, they give controllable high-B performance with lower- to mid-B test results. With an aspect ratio of 5.42 and extended weight ranges in all sizes, they easily passed the EN-B tests, even when flown above the ideal weight range. The Riot shaves about 20% off the weight of the regular PUNK, with lighter, more direct handling and smaller pack size. To arrange a demo contact your local dealer or: Big Sky Paragliding: flybigskypg.com BGD-USA.com BGD GLIDERS has just released their new tandem, the DUAL 2. According to BGD Design, the DUAL 2 is an entirely new design. It took years of development and many prototypes to perfect, but BGD believes it’s a significant leap forward from the original Dual, which itself was a benchmark EN-B tandem. It’s a pleasure to launch and to fly, with light, intuitive BGD handling and an outstanding sink rate, making it a “top-of-the-stack” performer. They’ve added a new big-ears locking system. They postulate that commercial pilots need tandems that last well, so they’ve made the DUAL 2 robust and strong, with durable cloth throughout and all sheathed Kevlar lines. The trimmers have easy-grab plastic balls and easyto-replace webbing. Contact: Big Sky Paragliding: flybigskypg.com BGD-USA.com

WILLS WING is now releasing the T3 IN THE 144 SIZE and accepting orders!

According to Wills Wing, the outstanding design feature on the T3 is a new system of bearings in the wingtips that provides an extraordinary improvement in handling and control authority. With the bearing tips, control response at VG full tight is comparable to a conventional airframe T2C at VG 50%. The result is a dramatic increase in effective performance. The sail has been through refinements to the fit and finish, to the planform shape, and features a new panel layout and bottom-surface color pattern. All T3s include the new bearing tips, UV-film laminate top surface, speed battens, carbon basetube, rear leading edges and sprogs and carbon raked tips. T3 Race and Team editions include Technora laminates with carbon reinforcement on the top surface to prevent any stretch or deformation at the tightest VG settings. The laminate “window” bottom-surface option is also included with Race and Team editions. Check out your options with the T3 color-picker, which is now up on the website. www.willswing.com/inventory/. The first two T3s were introduced at the 2019 Governador Valadares meet in Brazil by Filippo Oppici and Alvaro Figueiredo Sandoli (Nene). Filippo took the podium in first place and Nene was close behind in third against a strong international field. A few weeks later, more T3s debuted at the first week of the 2019 US Nationals in Florida. T3s took second through fifth, including three of four day wins, seven of the top 10 places, and the only two gliders in goal on the longest (247 km) task. More info: www.willswing.com/t3/.

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USH PA PILOT 13

Finding Lift

[ Executive Director, USHPA > MARTIN PALMAZ ]

Moving the organization forward.

Fall Board Meeting October 24-26, 2019 Colorado Springs, CO

Visit the website for further details and the most up-to-date information ushpa.org/boardmeeting

AIRS Accident/Incident Reporting System is standing by at airs.ushpa.org If you've been injured or experienced a close call, file a report today.

All AIRS reports are completely confidential.

GOLD SAFETY AWARD Lance Merrill, USHPA #41443, obtained his H5 and a Gold Safety Award.

BRONZE SAFETY AWARD Joachim Roesler, USHPA #54961 earned the Bronze Safety Award.

Dear Membership: We’ve worked hard over the years to make sure that the nuts and bolts of USHPA are transparent to our membership.

Any member can log in to the members’ area of the website and dig into the Board meeting’s minutes, committee reports, financials, proposals, and insurance details, and if those resources still leave questions, the committees, board and staff are here to listen and assist you in any way we can.

This monthly article is my effort to go beyond those nuts and bolts and help our membership understand the driving forces behind the decisions that move our organization forward. If we’re going to ask for your support in these decisions, after all, providing a foundation for that understanding is a vital part of the equation. In the next few articles I’m going to do my best to explain the “why” behind the “what,” by delving into a variety of topics that sit close to the heart of why we exist as an organization.

To kick this off, I’d like to talk about the most global of topics: the fact that we have a national organization to represent our sport—the benefits of which may not always be entirely clear. Most folks know that volunteers and staff do many things, but the lion’s share of what the organization does is typically only seen when challenges are actively in play (or when we’re publicly trying to prevent those challenges from happening). The most common example of this is site preservation or site access. Oftentimes local circumstance might impact our organization’s ability to obtain or maintain access to a site. In many cases these conflicts can be resolved through the chapter, but often it is incredibly effective for a national entity with a deep background, and legal counsel, in land management and negotiation to bring a different and effective light to bear.

When chapters and local pilots have national back up, we all win.

I’ve learned this over the past 14 years: Other organizations—whether industry, other member organizations or government agencies and whether the topic on the table is site preservation, FAA rules, land access agencies, or the drone industry—are more inclined to engage with a representative organization than with

individuals or small groups. They understand that at the national organization level the necessary information has been distilled, and they will be dealing with a vetted body politic that comes with resources, knowledge and understanding. A recent example of this occurred last year when we learned of legislation being proposed that would eliminate a historic flying site in Colorado, if passed. Fortunately, I was attending the Outdoor Retailer show at the same time and was able to make a timely connection with our advocacy partners. I learned more about the situation as well as who authored the proposed bill and whom I needed to contact. The governing group was unaware of our recreational use in the area and welcomed our participation in the process. Consequently, we were able to provide early input in the revision of the proposed boundary on the bill, allowing an historic flying site to be preserved if the bill is passed in congress.

This is certainly not to say individual input and participation aren’t useful or welcome, but in many instances organizational engagement is the most efficient way towards working for the greater good of our members, and of our sports at large. With more members comes a higher level of effectiveness, and a better chance of achieving our mission and goals ranging from, but not limited to, improving exposure and increasing participation, as well as protecting access, both on land and in the air. We urge all pilots to be members, so our collective community and resources can have the broadest reach in expanding and protecting this inspirational form of flight.

In the next letter, I’ll dig in to how we’re using that muscle to reach out to other affiliated, associated and parallel organizations in ways that have potential to create growth, as well as work to remedy issues that members encounter—and to strengthen the intra-organizational bonds of communication that keep us all on the same page. As always, your support in these efforts—and your continuing feedback— are deeply appreciated.

Blue skies, Martin Palmaz Executive Director, USHPA

Viva Vol Hotel

[ contributed by ANNEKA HERNDON ]

Using only a paraglider and a credit card. Two pilots send-it in style!

OPPOSITE TOP Final glide into the valley of Viterbo, reaching our Apia destination.

BOTTOM The author, Anneka Herndon, on glide, enjoying her time in Colombia.

TRAVEL

BELOW The falling-out cloud made for a beautiful view but we were glad to be on the ground.

14 US H PA P I LOT

As I was unpacking my paraglider on the Agua by using our paragliders? Why not see if we could fly to all of them and back? And, if at any Panela launch near Roldanillo, Colombia, an point we didn’t make it to our destination, we Australian fellow put a rolling GoPro in my could connect the route by hopping on a bus. face and asked, “So, why do you fly?” It seemed Essentially, all we would need is our toothlike a complicated question at 9 a.m., when all brushes and some pesos. It seemed as if it I was trying to do at the moment was wreswould be the low hanging fruit of multi-day tle my water ballast into my harness, slather adventure paragliding. When I threw the idea sunscreen on my face, and get diapered before out to Lisa, it took her exactly one second to running off the hill in an attempt to fly off to get out the words, “Hell, yeah!” We quickly yet another hotel. coined our adventure “Vol Hotel” and our slo“Umm...for the views?” I mindlessly replied. gan became: “By glider! Or by bus!”

He blinked twice and moved on to distract the After we arrived in Roldanillo, we spent the next pilot from his/her sacred pre-flight rituals.

I have thought about that question a lot since first few days getting warmed up with delightful cross-country flights. Soon we found then. Why do I fly? There are lots of answers ourselves flying 82 km and landing very near to that question. I was able to distill it down Piedrechinche: the southernmost flying site in to the following: I fly to go places. I fly for the the valley. Though neither one of us intended adventure. I love to cover terrain, and I love to to start our Vol Hotel trip that flight, we said, launch and leave all expectations behind me.

“Screw it; we are here now. Let it begin!”

First and foremost, I aim to let creativity and We purchased toothbrushes and a hotel curiosity drive me and let the metrics of my room and settled into Santa Elena, a small flights follow. town near the next day’s launch. That night at So when a dear friend and fellow pilot, Lisa the popular pilot hotel, we happened to run Dickinson, and I were planning a gal’s trip to into a few close friends from the States and Colombia, I thought it would be interesting to try a different approach. What if we focused on shared beers and laughs over a classic Colombian pounded-chicken dinner, while relating adventure flights instead of racking up points in an XContest with massive triangles, or push- our “Vol Hotel” idea. As the evening drew to an end, we discussed how we visualized this trip, ing personal bests, or joining a competition? especially since we now sat at the first of our I pulled out the map and realized that within destinations. Questions were asked: Were there the 200km-long Cauca Valley, there are many rules governing our Vol Hotel experience? Did launches besides the famous Roldanillo, and we have to either make the flight to the next each one is connected to the others by roads destination or return to launch, if we bombed and towns. Why not explore that connection

out? Or could we just catch a bus to the next town on our route? We explained that we were not necessarily focused on distance. But since we are XC pilots, Lisa and I are both motivated to get good flights. We had the luxury of time, so we decided on the following rules: If we made it more than half way to our next destination and landed, we would continue by bus.

If we landed shy of half way to the destination, due to a bomb-out or weather, we would return to the launch the next day for a “Do-over.”

The second day was very overcast and shaded, making it clear that a 90km flight back to Roldanillo was not in the cards. Upon landing, I heard Lisa on the radio enthusiastically exclaim: “Do-over!” So we pulled the Do-over card and spent one more night in Santa Elena, with plans to try again the next day.

Lisa’s Gin Explorer and my Alpina were of similar size, and our flying style is compatible, so we were well suited to fly together. Both of us were focused on having fun, making good decisions, and having kick-ass flights. By implementing team-flying tactics, we were able to fly

together for the majority of our flights. Though challenging in practice, sticking together has many technical benefits. My favorite is the fact that staying close meant we could truly share the experience, and really whoop it up side by

󲢫 We were much less concerned about where we would end up.

After all, we had our toothbrushes and pesos, so there were really no excuses! 󲢻 side, in rippers rocketing us skyward. It also meant having a teammate for navigating the unforeseen adventures of finding beer, food and the next hotel after we landed.

ABOVE Map of the line that Anneka Herndon and LIsa Dickinson followed on the vol biv through Colombia!

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the flight, which pushed our two little gliders into Viterbo, a small village just below the mountain town of Apia. We had completed the full 86 kms of the north leg that day. After hugs and high fives, we packed up and trotted into town for our standard post-flying snack—Colombia’s finest chicken and beer. We wandered through the town square and found a Willy truck to take us up the winding mountain road to Apia, where we would check into our next “Hotel” portion of “Vol Hotel.”

Apia was a treat to explore. This town boasts great coffee, cool air, and steep streets decorated with colorful murals. It lies on a steep ridge deep within the folds of Colombian mountains, blanketed with coffee plantations and banana crops. The craggy peaks of the Tatama National Park hang in the backdrop, shrouded in fog like lace draped over cliffs, giving the town a mysterious mountain atmosphere.

The morning brought light rain and amazing local coffee. Just as the sun poked through the parting clouds, the local tandem pilots showed Our flight on the third day brought us back up in the quaint town square. They loaded Lisa just shy of Roldanillo, after a super fun and and me and our gear into a truck and hauled challenging 75km flight. Each of us had close us up to launch. The day looked perfect, as calls with the dreaded sink out, giving us the clouds lifted up over the valley, revealing the chance to take turns cheering each other gorgeous green mountains and picturesque on, which made the flight more rewarding. valleys.

After landing, a quick bus ride got us back to Our goal for this flight was to fly back south Roldanillo, where we spent the night, grabbed and stop at Ansermanuevo, about 35 km away. I more charging cables, and took a clean set of followed Lisa, who was dangling from her little clothes for the northbound leg of the journey. red glider, off the hill as early as possible. We We were determined when we set out the pieced together the terrain, as we moved from next morning to point towards the north end thermal to thermal, enjoying the company of of the Cauca Valley, with a goal of getting as chirping birds and chirping to one another close as possible to the town of Apia. We had over the radio about breathtaking views. Soon loosely convinced a flock of friends to grab Ansermanuevo appeared below us. We could their toothbrushes, make like geese, and mihave pushed on back to familiar Roldanillo for grate north with us. However, what started as a bigger flight, but we decided it would be silly group enthusiasm waned throughout the day and, eventually, one by one, our fellow co-pilots to fly over yet another opportunity to see a new Colombian village with a new launch. So turned back to complete triangles or out-andwe landed at Ansermanuevo and, to our delight, backs and returned to their familiar hotel. found a hotel perched right on launch, overlooking the quilt-like valley floor, composed of Our flock slowly shrank down to just the two green and brown fields. With perfect timing, of us. Lisa and I happily pushed on together, we arrived at the hotel just as a classic afterdetermined to see just how far we could make noon thunderstorm swept through the valley, it towards Apia. We were much less concerned dumping buckets of rain and bolts of flashing about where we would end up. After all, we had our toothbrushes and pesos, so there were lightning. Lisa and I cheered ourselves for having made a good decision, relieved that we really no excuses! The flying was fantastic, were safely watching the storm, not trying to with strong climbs and boaty glides. We were out-run bad conditions farther down the valley. rewarded with a tailwind for the last 35 km of

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When five p.m. rolled around, the hotel staff hopped on motor bikes and left for the night, so we had to rely on own devices for food.

Since Vol Hotel depends on restaurants as our (usually dependable) food source, we were a bit perplexed about how to get our next two meals. Walking along a dirt road in search of food, we ran into a person who told us there were no restaurants, but we should go to a particular house where a woman would feed us. Timidly, we knocked on the door, and we soon had a Colombian grandmother who not only cooked an amazing local meal, but showered us with hugs and prayers.

As I sat on the old woman’s porch, laughing with my dear friend, I realized with joy that I gotten here via my paraglider. I would never have had access to these experiences without being willing to just fly off in search of adventure. That moment crystallized for me that I fly because flying puts me in unexpected places and provides me with rich and full life experiences.

The next day we were excited and eager to attempt to fly back to Roldanillo, which would conclude nearly 400 km of flying from one end of this amazing valley and back.

That morning, it was a treat to just roll out of our hotel room and flop our gear out on launch, keeping it casual. Soon the sun had warmed the earth and cycles started flowing through. One after the other, we took to the air. Cloudbase was low. It was immediately apparent we had a stout headwind. Trading off marking thermals and pushing into the wind, we struggled 25km down the course line and eventually bombed out, after fighting it in a last-ditch effort over a dark field. This was the first landing of the trip with which I felt

completely unsatisfied and frustrated at landing early. I balled up my glider and stomped over to Lisa in the shade. “That was bullshit!” she snorted with a laugh. We were so close to finishing. Neither one of us wanted to take the bus, so Lisa and I decided we would make a slight modification of the Do-over rule. We would hike up and relaunch.

This became the: “Try again, I wasn’t ready to land goddamnit!” rule. Before my premature landing, I had scouted a hill that looked suitable for a launch; however, it required a 1000’ hike in the nearly 100-degree midday Colombian sun, with no shade. With positive attitudes and quite a bit of conviction, we charged up the hill, determined to finish our valley tour by glider, not bus. Alas, our sweaty hiking efforts and risk of heat stroke rewarded us with a glorious re-launch, but only another 25 km. Upon landing this time, I felt wholly satisfied and happy to take the bus to Roldanillo.

I knew we gave it our all, and, despite not connecting the dots solely by gliders, we were rewarded with a unique and memorable trip!

So we plucked and consumed the low hanging fruit of adventure flying, which only makes me hungry for the next one. I have learned that this type of flying really motivates me. This trip helped me realize that multi-day flying adventures that are worth doing can be accessible without being extreme or dangerous. I think if you can, even for a bit, motivate your flights by creativity and curiosity instead of preconceived expectations, and measure them in adventure and experience instead of metrics, then you are truly open to what the sky has to offer. All you have to do is show up, have fun, and give it a go.

TOP Our very stoked team of two in a Jeep Willy, headed up to Apia after landing in Viterbo.

MIDDLE Watching a storm roll in on launch at Ansermanuevo.

BOTTOM Lisa stoked for our first hotel, Siga la Vaca, after a great flight from Roldanillo.

Hang Gliding Competition

[ contributed by SARA WEAVER ]

An Introduction to aerial chess!

Hang gliding is a small sport. But competitive hang gliding? It’s one of the most niche sports in the world. Getting involved is far more accessible than a recreational pilot might realize, but ABOVE Go time for competitions take a fair amount of preparation.

Corinna Schwiegershausen. Here’s a run-down on competition hang gliding Photo by Audray Luck.

Competition Basics

COMPETITION

During a typical competition day, a pilot will launch and fly cross-country along a predetermined course line. That daily course is set by the Task committee, which is typically composed of a diverse group of pilots familiar with the local area and weather conditions. The Task committee designs a feasible course based on wind direction, velocity, lift, cloudbase, and the possible development throughout the day of weather components while pilots are on course, and while keeping safe landing fields in mind. The Task committee is responsible for choosing the time pilots can start launching and the time the race clock (AKA the start gates) begins, once everyone is in the air.

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A second group of pilots, called the Safety committee, evaluate the choices of the Task committee and accept, alter, or cancel the task, based on observed conditions and predicted weather models. Once the committees are in agreement, the task is presented to pilots at the daily morning briefing.

A “course line” is a series of waypoints, also called turnpoints, to which a pilot must fly in an exact order during a single, continuous flight. Turnpoints are a specific geographic coordinate with a radius determined by the Task committee. The committee generally determines the size of the radii based on safety or accessibility of the surrounding landing areas, or perhaps to manipulate the overall shape of the course. If the turnpoint doesn’t have landing areas within the standard 400m radius, the radius may be extended to encompass safer fields. Adding turnpoints or extending or shrinking their radius along the course can also be used as a method of guiding pilots away from restricted airspaces or inhospitable

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terrain. The final turnpoint is known as goal.

Pilots who attempt to fly the task receive a score based on how far they flew along course that day. Because competitions last several days, a pilot’s final score is his/her accumulated total at the end of the competition. If a pilot lands somewhere along the course, he’s scored based on how far he made it. If he makes goal, he receives additional points for how fast he did so. Other elements, such as leading points (how much time a pilot spent in the lead) and how many pilots made goal can influence how many points are available on any given day.

The scoring algorithm is complex beyond the scope of this article, but for a more in-depth view, visit https://www.fai.org.

Preparation

Before registration, pilots should acquire a free CIVL ID from http://civlrankings.fai.org/FL.aspx?a=308&. This number is used as a lifetime pilot identifier for competitions sanctioned by the Commission Internationale de Vol Libre within the World Airsports Federation (formally known as the Fédération Aéronautique Internationale). Sanctioning simply means that the competition rules follow FAI standards.

Most large hang gliding competitions are Category I or II; pilots can check the description of the competition during registration to determine its category. Most comps in the US are Category II. Pilots should also obtain an FAI Sporting License for $45 at https://naa. aero/membership/fai-sporting-license (US pilots only. International pilots should seek an FAI Sporting License through their own country’s oversight agency). This insures a pilot’s inclusion in the National Team Selection System (NTSS), which indicates a pilot’s rank within the United States. The sporting license requires renewal on an annual basis, while the CIVL ID does not. Both are necessary if a pilot is interested in being counted for both national and international rankings.

Registration for competitions usually opens at least six months in advance. A majority of competitions are listed on Airtribune.com, while others operate on private websites. Finding the proper place to register should be as easy as asking your nearest comp pilot buddy.

Registration requires listing the type of wing you plan to fly, and payment of the registration fees. Fees are highly dependent on competition,

but rarely top $300. Late sign-up fees can sometimes boost the expense.

Competing is not cheap and usually requires that a pilot take at least a week off work. Transportation for pilot and glider to and from the competition must be arranged in advance, and cheap local accommodation can sometimes be scarce. Some locations allow camping for pilots on a budget, while other pilots often group up to split vacation rentals and hotel rooms.

Pilots must also arrange for a retrieve vehicle and a driver to pick them up when landing away from the launch field. Some international competitions arrange retrieval for pilots, but most in the US do not. Pilots typically team up with others flying at similar skill levels to fill a car and find a driver. The Retrieval Goddesses (https://www.facebook.com/retrievalgoddesses/) offer assistance in tracking down available retrieval drivers and vehicles at several US hang gliding and paragliding competitions. Retrieve costs approximately $25-35 per pilot per day and must be paid regardless of the day’s being blown out, since the driver is technically always on call.

A flight computer capable of competition route reading is another crucial component for competing. Learning how to use a flight instrument to follow a course is one of the most fun

TOP Sport-class pilots patiently waiting out the spring heat as they stand in line perfectly for their turn to launch. Photo by Audray Luck.

BOTTOM Dragonflies lined up and ready for action at the 2019 Quest Air Nationals. Photo by Audray Luck.

󲢫 Registration for competitions usually opens at least six months in advance. A majority of competitions are listed on Airtribune.com 󲢻

backup in case of primary computer failure.

Often, competition organizers rent simple GPS trackers for each pilot, which can communicate flight information instantaneously to scorekeepers. These trackers are valuable both as GPS backups and as a tool for competitors to send signals to organizers after they land, indicating whether they’re down safe or need emergency assistance. When operating correctly, trackers also negate the necessity for every pilot to email his or her tracklog to the scorekeeper each night. These trackers are distributed in the morning before flying and must be returned nightly for charging.

Another advisable piece of equipment is a radio (Baofeng and Yaesu are common brands) with a long-range antenna. This can be used to communicate with teammates (typically the other pilots in the retrieve vehicle) and driver, both on the ground and in the air. Meet organizers will designate a safety frequency to communicate relevant information, such as task cancellations and other safety concerns.

Meet organizers assign each retrieve vehicle a unique frequency for both driver and pilot, which allows drivers to contact pilots directly in case safety information needs to be communicated as well.

Daily cross-country flying also requires basics like water, snacks, sunscreen, and a way to communicate with contacts. When flying XC, there’s always a risk of landing in inaccessible or inhospitable landscapes, so the value of basic necessities cannot be underestimated.

Learning to efficiently pack a harness with these essentials is extremely helpful. Do not forget a backup cell phone battery.

A Day in the Life of a Competition Pilot

technical aspects of competition flight, but it can easily prove overwhelming for first-time users. Tracking down a mentor to help navigate the complexities of flight computers can substantially reduce the inevitable confusion involved in learning. It is advisable to have a GPS 20 US H PA P I LOT

Competitive flying is a whirlwind, from dawn to dusk. In hang gliding, where setting up takes a substantial amount of time, it’s helpful to be ready to go as soon as possible, and remember that the party from the night before might unpleasantly impact the pilot’s efficiency the following morning. I always try to eat a big breakfast and have my glider and harness set up before the pilot meeting, which is typically around 10a.m. Other pilots are perfectly capable of rolling out of bed just before the meeting and taking care of everything in the hour before launch.

During the 45-60 minute pilot meeting, the

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competitors are presented with the day’s relevant information. Organizers generally begin with presenting prizes to the previous day’s winners, followed by a safety update from the safety committee. Next, someone usually conducts an in-depth weather discussion, and, finally, the Task committee brings it home with a presentation of the day’s course. Participating pilots can always provide commentary on the tasks, like safety concerns. Once the task is collectively agreed upon, a launch window is set, and the meeting is concluded.

A pilot launch order usually is sent out via email or group message to every pilot the night before or morning of. On the first day, a pilot’s launching position is decided by his/her CIVL ranking (those without a ranking are randomized at the back of the line). On subsequent days, the launch order is determined by the pilot’s performance in the competition. The top 10 or 20 pilots will be reversed so that the best ranking pilots aren’t required to launch first, but are still in an advantageous position for catching the first start gate. The organizers either provide a map or place ropes with numbers on the ground to indicate where a pilot should stage, corresponding to his/her launch order.

Once the pilot’s glider has been moved to the proper spot, final launch preparations begin. The harness must be packed, the flight computer with the correct route needs to be readied, and the pilot has to get on layers of clothing and get attached to the wing. In massive aerotow competitions, it can take an hour to get everyone in the air, so it’s usually beneficial to wait until some of the pilots have launched before putting on layers in hot weather. Regardless, the pilot must be absolutely prepared to launch by the time it’s his or her turn. Otherwise, they may be pushed to the back of the line. You don’t want to be the guy who’s underprepared on launch!

Once in the sky, the next challenge is preparing for the start gate. Usually, several start gates begin one hour after launch opens in order to allow pilots to launch and get high in the cylinder around the initial turnpoint (which is usually the launch field). A start gate is simply the time the race clock begins, and typically several are designated, spaced 15-20 minutes apart. The best strategy for starting a competition flight is to get as high as possible, just inside the edge of the start cylinder, near the beginning of the course line. When the first clock hits, pilots in this prime position will immediately go on glide along the course toward the next turnpoint. If a pilot is in a less appealing position, he/she can opt to stay in the start cylinder vying for a better spot when the next start gate arrives.

Because of the density of pilots in the sky during launch and within the start cylinder, gaggle-flying skills are absolutely critical. Meet organizers always set a turn direction that every pilot must follow within the start cylinder (beyond the start cylinder, standard turn direction rules apply). Flying in crowded gaggles requires unrelenting focus; a pilot must clue in on the strongest lift, while flying reasonably enough that surrounding pilots don’t have to take evasive action. Graceful gaggle flying is always a group effort. Finding the balance between coring out and flying aggressively around tens of other gliders is key.

Much like safe gaggling, flying along course is a team effort. On plenty of days, a pilot will have to fly alone, but finding lift is always easier with friends. After topping out a climb, pilots will want to spread out near the course line, taking various lines to the next turnpoint.

This “wolfpack” flying covers more air-scape, and the more pilots who comply, the more likely it is that someone will find lift that everyone can take advantage of. Sticking with the gaggle is much more likely to pay off than flying as a

ABOVE Pilot landing, in hopes of staying up after a relaunch. Photo by Audray Luck.

OPPOSITE TOP Wolfi Siess all smiles after being retrieved. Photo by Audray Luck.

MIDDLE These competitions rely on volunteers like Kyle, Thor, and David to help things go smoothly on launch.

Photo by Audray Luck.

BOTTOM Launch volunteers Mike, Nico, Logan, and Kacey getting prepped for the madness of getting 100 pilots into the air. Photo by Audray Luck.

lone wolf.

The inevitable ending of every flight is a landing, and for a new competition pilot, that landing is almost always in unfamiliar territory.

Good landing skills are (wait for it) absolutely crucial for a successful competition pilot.

LEFT A view from Knowing whether a glide over unlandable territhe iconic purple tory is possible is a skill only acquired through Dragonfly not many endless practice. Being able to identify obstaget to see. A lot of cles from various altitudes doesn’t happen organization goes into making these launch overnight. Assessing ground-level conditions lines look so pretty without a wind sock requires, you got it, extenand go so smoothly. sive experience. Analyzing the entire course Photo by Audray Luck. line on Google Earth before a flight to identify key areas to avoid or helpful LZs in tricky places can really help ease a new competition RIGHT Rudy Gotes and others putting the pilot’s nerves. Pilots should always err on the open-class task into side of caution and come down in conservative their varios moments LZs, rather than going for it in unknown, marafter the morning ginal-looking areas. meeting. Photo by After landing, the process of retrieve begins.

Audray Luck.

In areas with cell service, it’s usually quite easy to send a map pin to the retrieve driver. When flying in areas known to lack good cell service, it’s helpful to fly with a satellite communication device like a Spot or Delorme inReach. A pilot can always contact meet organizers to ask if such devices are necessary for a particular site. After contacting retrieve, the pilot should break down his or her wing as quickly as possible. Sometimes the driver isn’t very far away, and since other pilots are also awaiting pick-up, packing up quickly is the courteous move.

Pilots are not trespassing by landing in someone’s field, because every landing in a non-motorized aircraft is considered an emergency landing. If a retrieve driver comes onto the property, he/she is trespassing, so that should be avoided. A pilot should always be courteous to landowners, hike out gear as quickly as pos22 US H PA P I LOT

sible, offer to pay for any damages, including crops, and contact the local sheriff’s office if an interaction with a landowner is escalating.

Of course, landing in safe LZs is the most important consideration, but landing next to an accessible road (read: avoiding fields far behind locked gates) can ease the retrieve experience immensely. After all pilots in the vehicle have been retrieved, the pilots typically return to headquarters, often stopping for dinner on the way back. There’s usually some sort of headquarters or location where pilots gather in the evening to party and tell stories about their day, before (eventually) heading to bed and doing it all again the next day.

Costs of Competition

Competing in a hang gliding competition is not cheap, especially if it’s aerotow rather than foot launch. If a pilot is taking unpaid vacation, lost wages for the week need to be considered.

Transportation with luggage and a glider in a plane or car starts contributing to wallet pains months before the comp even begins. Registration can run from $100-350 and is often subject to late fees for signing up too close to the event.

Aerotow fees are about $400 per week. Sometimes camping is an option, but sleeping in a comfortable bed in a place with a nice shower can really affect a pilot’s performance over a long competition week. Taking care of your retrieve driver for about $25 a day or more is the most important money spent all week, especially for pilots prone to landing in obscure locations. Pilots will need to be prepared with cash for food, for having fun on no-fly days, and for purchasing any gear or property/crops damaged upon landing. Prize money rarely tops $1000 in the US, so unfortunately, you can’t expect that being the best pilot will make

USH PA PILOT 23

up for all the cash you’re spending.

The costs of competition go far beyond the wallet. If the weather isn’t good, you will have spent over a thousand dollars for a week of hang waiting. If it’s flyable, 5-10 days of tackling big tasks causes immense wear and tear on the body, especially if followed by nightly partying.

One of the biggest costs of competing is the temptation to fly less conservatively to achieve a better ranking. Otherwise conservative pilots sometimes have launched in conditions outside their comfort zone, glided into unlandable terrain without the necessary altitude, and landed in marginal fields—all on the promise of achieving a higher score, with little consideration for safety. Oftentimes, pilots try competing only to realize that they just don’t find it fun; it’s too competitive, their head’s not

tive sport class that top pilots can really enjoy.

The open class is perfect for experienced pilots who are flying topless wings with many cross-country flights under their belt. Not for the faint of heart, the open class is where the best of the best face off during massive XC tasks, often arriving back to headquarters early the next morning, following multi-hour retrieves. It’s not uncommon for a pilot’s personal goals to change through the years, and many choose to move from the open class down to sport or vice versa. Choose the class that works best for you now, and reevaluate before every comp.

After the pilot considers his/her personal experience level, choosing the right competition is the next step. Due to the immense costs outlined above, a pilot should aim for his first

󲢫 Hanging out all over the world with an incredible group of friends, exploring new and beautiful places, and pushing the limits of personal performance all make competition hang gliding among the most incredible experiences of a lifetime. 󲢻 in the right place, they find themselves making unsafe decisions, or following a XC course just isn’t the type of flying they enjoy.

Where to Start

Although there are many reasons pilots may find they don’t enjoy competing, those who love it, love it with an undeniable passion. Hanging out all over the world with an incredible group of friends, exploring new and beautiful places, and pushing the limits of personal performance all make competition hang gliding among the most incredible experiences of a lifetime. The only way to find out if you’ll enjoy it is to try!

The pilot’s first task is to determine which class to fly in, open or sport. The sport class caters to kingposted pilots, pilots with little or no competition experience, and pilots who don’t wish to fly topless hang gliders. The sport class is a place for growth, mentorship, and for learning if competition is something the pilot would enjoy. It is by far the most accessible pathway into competition hang gliding. With shorter tasks, pilots flying a kingposted wing can find far greater success than by flying in the open class. Additionally, pilots with lots of cross-country and competition experience who fly kingposted wings create a highly competi-

competition to be as cheap and fun as possible while he/she decides if competition is right for them. There are several regular sanctioned competitions in the US, like Quest Air Nationals and Green Swamp Sport Klassic (Paradise Air Sports) in Florida, Big Spring Nationals in Texas, and the Santa Cruz Flats Race in Arizona. The Green Swamp is typically the cheapest, the most highly recommended, and the most fun for a beginning competition pilot.

Pilots join a team based on glider type and are mentored on the ground and in flight via radio by a talented mentor with years of experience.

Typically held in March, the Green Swamp Sport Klassic has a strong focus on preparing conservative pilots for the competition circuit.

The other competitions do not offer mentorship, but a first-time competitor shouldn’t have too much trouble finding someone to help if guidance is needed.

Joining the competition circuit can be an intimidating experience, but I hope this article sheds some light on the process for getting involved. Competing is an excellent tool for increasing one’s skills quickly through flying every single day. Top pilots are more than happy to share their tips and tricks, and the community experience is absolutely unmatched. Hope to see you there!

More questions about competing or where to start? Contact Sara Weaver at weaversara13@gmail. com. I’ll help as much as I can, and if I don’t know the answer, I’ll get you in touch with someone who does.

VIRGINIA TECH HANG GLIDING CLUB

by ANNETTE O’NEIL

other follows. That’s been the pattern since the Hollingsheads were toddlers.

To hear Nolan tell it, the twin dyThe original story of the Virginia Tech Hang Gliding Club first appeared in the namic looms large in this story.

January/February Issue of USHPA Pilot. “I’ve always described our relationship to people in these terms,” he “It started totally by accident,” Nolan explains. “We are cheating at life, because any idea one of us has, we’ve Hollingshead laughs. got double the effort to explore it.

From my perspective, it doesn’t Paragliding and hang gliding are hard seem like an accident at all: a pretersports to get into, because you want a naturally charming pair of athletic twins—Nolan and Hunter—got roped friend to do it with, if you even want to do it in the first place. You need into sprinting the dunes at Kitty Hawk. They then created a movement someone who is down to doing basiaround their new passion that foscally anything you want to do, and that’s who your twin is.” tered it in an unbroken chain of new participants. Far-fetched? Not really.

Their foundation was already there.

The brothers were rock climbing together by age 12, as well as wakeboarding and free running. To celeAfter a successful (if reluctant) first brate their shared 18th birthday, they few flights, Nolan and Hunter continskydived together. They both became ued dabbling a bit in hang gliding, as fixed-wing pilots, sharing their dad’s they dabble in so many other advenairplane. They do a lot of activities tures. One day, however, an instructor and they do them with verve. on the hill made an earnest and imThat said: Nolan chortles, “I didn’t passioned suggestion that the twins even want to go hang gliding the first go to Kitty Hawk Kites and get their time. It was all Hunter’s idea. He had instructor ratings. No teaching expeto drag me to that first tandem.” Of rience necessary, the instructor added. course: Where one twin goes, the The proposition came as a complete

surprise, but it landed on interested ears. The Hollingsheads headed east, to the dunes.

“So there we were,” he grins, “sprinting up and down the sand dunes with the students, helping with the tether, having a ball. It was the best job I have ever had in my life. Kitty Hawk Kites has got a really vigorous training program; if you’re excited about it and can learn quickly (which are pretty much the only qualifications they look for) you’re a beginner instructor by the end of the summer. Hunter and I were hooked. Just like that.”

Nolan and Hunter went straight

󲢫 I couldn’t help asking why other people weren’t flying, why there wasn’t a hang gliding club. 󲢻

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back to school from the dunes. It was their second year at legendarily club-rich Virginia Tech, where both were studying engineering (Nolan, mechanical; Hunter, aerospace).

“I couldn’t help asking,” Nolan muses, “why other people weren’t flying, why there wasn’t a hang gliding club. I asked Hunter what he thought would happen if we started a hang gliding club at VT and tried to bring

USH PA PILOT 25

Things were starting to come tofarther than expected and head more people into it. He was down for straight for his final destination in it, so we started a Facebook group gether. The nascent club was starting a ditch. While the student was “the and started organizing trips to Kitty to figure out a glider, a hill, and inmost excited person on earth” to have structors. Progress was slow, however, Hawk Kites. It seemed obvious. We gotten airborne for the first time, could already teach there. It was just as the ever-twisting Rubik’s cube of a Hunter, who had been running along- volunteer flying organization tends to a matter of bringing some friends along.” side him for the entire abortive event, be. One side is almost blue, and then...

In those first days, being a club it’s not. Interest was a problem for a explained nervously that they would member “just meant you were one of long time. However, when the twins not be doing that again! the twins’ girlfriends,” Nolan explains, graduated, their then-girlfriends, During one of those ground-han“or somebody we rock climbed with.”

Emily and Megan, took over, and that dling sessions in the spring semester To change that, they realized they’d interest picked right back up. of 2016, a gentleman came up and have to build an entire infrastructure. introduced himself. He told the slack“Having Emily and Megan running Luckily, there was precedent. around Virginia Tech,” Nolan laughs, jawed students about a 200-foot hill “Part of the structure came from not 10 minutes away from where they “arm and arm, best friends, screaming talking to the guys at the Berkeley ‘who wants to come hang gliding with were standing and explained that Hang Gliding Club,” Nolan says. “Acus?’ with their big, contagious smiles, the locals formerly used it as a hang to anyone who will listen... There was gliding launch, before interest in the tually, back then, I didn’t know they sport tapered off. It was called Clover a line out the door.” existed. Bruce Weaver from Kitty Thanks to the Foundation for Free Hollow.

Hawk put me in contact with a couFlight, a glider was waiting once a ple of the Berkeley club members, and “We piled into his car,” Nolan grins, student got to the front of that line. “and said, ‘take us there right now’.”

I called them. They explained that After a warren of winding bends, the That boost, as Nolan will cheerfully students will pay a couple of hundred tell you, was the best thing that hap200-foot hill loomed magically into dollars in dues for a semester, with all the instruction volunteer-based. It view. Still a little stunned, Hunter pened for the club. meekly approached the front door got us thinking.”

“We were thinking about glider fundof the farmhouse to ask the owner’s With the starting-gun fired, of ing while I was at Lookout Mountain,” blessing. Miraculously, he got it. course, came the challenges: insurNolan says. “And I heard from a pilot there that when the Tennessee Treeance, the conspicuous absence of a teaching glider, site details, and toppers club had bought some land OPPOSITE Hunter (left) and Nolan (right) working out a legitimate setup, since for their launch and landing site, they instruct Emily Webb in her first compeboth brothers had started out as had gotten help—a grant—from the tition flight at the 44th Kitty Hawk Kites Hang Gliding Spectacular (Nags Head, non-rated instructors, only able to Foundation for Free Flight.”

NC). BELOW Nolan Hollingshead helps teach their closest friends. The club That pilot explained that the FounRyan Salvo launch at Eagle Rock, VA. also had no local site. Growing the club under those conditions seemed to be a non-starter.

But, ever the engineers, the Hollingsheads went about solving those problems one by one. They started by earning their credentials. Next, they searched for a glider to teach on. They raised a thousand dollars through a VT tailgating event, staffed entirely by stoked volunteers, half of whom had never touched a hang glider (and never intended to).

One terrible glider purchase later, they had a too-heavy groundhog, suitable only for flat-ground running.

This was evident when on a “trial run” training session, one pilot managed to sprint his way into the air, float

dation for Free Flight is a 501 C (3), non-profit, completely separate from USHPA and staffed by volunteers.

Their sole purpose is to support the free-flight community by providing assistance with site preservation, safety and education, and competition. And he gave Nolan the phone number.

Nolan wasted no time in calling.

Jayne DePanfilis, the Foundation’s volunteer executive director, answered Nolan’s phone call; their conversation lasted for a solid hour.

Nolan told her about the club and the fistful of excited people at VT stoked to fly, but that they didn’t have an appropriate glider to teach newbies within the context of Clover Hollow.

“She was so excited,” Nolan grins.

“She was blown away that all of this had been happening under the radar.

She said yes, absolutely, apply for a grant!”

Jayne asked if the club was a USHPA-approved chapter and Nolan told her he was working with USHPA to complete the application. He had already secured his regional-director’s endorsement, and he received the final go-ahead for the chapter before the grant was approved. He assured Jayne that they were USHPA-certified basic instructors and, Nolan recalls, “I emphasized that we provide only completely free instruction, without compensation, and that we do not sell equipment. We charge reasonable club membership dues to help offset the costs associated with maintaining equipment, and to maintain our chap26 US H PA P I LOT

ter status. We had already obtained landowner permission for instructional and recreational flying at our sites, and our risk-mitigation plans were in place. We were ready to go fly!”

When Jayne asked what the club needed from the FFF, Nolan told her that, ideally, they needed the majority of the funding to purchase two brand new Alphas. “We have a dilemma,” he pointed out, “where the majority of the people at Virginia Tech are 90-pound girls, which is the total opposite of others in the sport, while everyone else in hang gliding is a 175-pound male. We needed a smaller glider. It’s essential for our club. In an ideal world, we need one of each size...”

Another wrinkle was that, ideally, the gliders needed to be available by the start of the fall semester at VA Tech, ready to impress the crowds at the VT Club Expo.

Jayne proposed a matching-fund strategy, explaining that the Foundation requires grant recipients to take an active, leading role in their fundraising efforts. She asked if it would be possible to raise the matching funds and Nolan responded that some folks at Kitty Hawk Kites might be willing to kick in. Because of the club’s previous success in their tailgate fundraiser, Nolan was confident that they could pull it off again. He mentioned, that, too.

She let him know that she’d bring it to the Foundation for Free Flight board at the very next opportunity: the next day, as it turned out, at their annual face-to-face board meeting.

LEFT Several of the club officers show off the club’s new Wills Wing Alpha at Virginia Tech’s club expo, GobblerFest.

CENTER Several VT Club members soaring together in Eagle Rock, VA RIGHT Nolan, Hunter and Emily pose together at Lookout mountain flight park after a club trip. OPPOSITE Nolan, Hunter, and Ryan Salvo teaching the first official training session at Clover Hollow training hill.

Talk about good timing! She seemed confident that, although the FFF hadn’t historically funded glider purchases, this request—because it was for training gliders to be used for completely free instruction, by USHPA-certified instructors, organized under a USHPA-approved chapter, with permission from their landowners— would likely fit under the “education” segment of the FFF mission. Clearly she liked the idea.

The call came back just a week later: Approved! Jayne informed Nolan that the trustees were excited to support a college club’s effort to provide completely free instruction to grow the sport. There were conditions spelled out in the grant agreement letter: The VT Hang Gliding Club had to raise the $1000 as pledged, and the club had to actively seek help from the Kitty Hawk crowd and other resources.

“She said, ‘OK, you guys get fundraising, and we will get to working out the details’,” Nolan beams. “She continued, ‘I am so excited about what you are doing. I think this is going to be huge!’ I could hardly believe it. I was so stoked.”

Immediately after hanging up, Nolan rallied the troops. He called up

USH PA PILOT 27

Hunter and Megan and Emily. “I told them they had to bring the energy for this,” he says, “because I already knew it was going to take a massive joint effort.” The team got right to work.

Megan fired up a Go Fund Me page.

They started talking to friends. Notably, they did not raise the club dues.

“This funding would normally come from club dues,” Nolan explains, “but our original goal was to make hang gliding as accessible and free as possible. We didn’t want to have multiple-hundred-dollar club dues if we could avoid it. To do that, we had to meet this goal with old-fashioned fundraising, so that’s what we did.”

The donations started rolling in.

Individual pilots familiar with the club donated. So did friends of Jayne, people at VA Tech who wanted to fly, the brothers’ friends, families, and so on. In the end, the club raised about $1200, of which $1000 was used for the down payment for the training gliders, which were purchased at a significant discount from the manufacturer. The Foundation for Free Flight matched the remaining, and the club got its gliders. Those brandnew flying machines would be on the hill at Clover Hollow by the

fall semester, right on schedule. “We are getting attention now!” Nolan exclaims. “People know who we are!”

When he started this club, Nolan muses, “I had no idea what it would become. I thought it would be awesome if we could get maybe two pilots trained or, at best, three or four, so it could be a ‘real’ club. Now we have the biggest collegiate hang gliding club in the country.”

They might have the biggest smiles in the country, too. Nolan’s, at least, is in the running.

“I love teaching hang gliding,” Nolan enthuses. “It is so much fun! There’s nothing like it. At first, people don’t understand why I am willing to do all this stuff for free—why I’ll drive six hours just to teach someone to fly. They make fun of me, until they come out to Kitty Hawk Kites to do a training session. When they come down, they finally understand why I get so excited about this.”

“Our goals are simple,” Nolan continues. “We want to see a self-sustaining club, and a big part of that is accomplished by bringing

people to Kitty Hawk Kites to become instructors. As much as I’m excited to drive six hours to teach people how to hang glide, I’m not going to be able to do it that often now, since I have a full-time engineering job. I want it to be something I can walk away from while it keeps growing. That is the ultimate goal.”

Well, it’s working. And Nolan insists that it’ll work at other schools, too, just as it’s worked at VT and Berkeley.

“Anybody who has an interest and passion for the sport is perfectly able to start up a club at his or her school and build up their skill sets with a similar, like-minded group of people,” he says. “ I think that’s an excellent way to increase numbers around the country. For us, this all began with one person enthusiastically reaching out to spark the idea that we should continue hang gliding. Let’s keep that chain going!”

󲢫 I’m probably flying paragliders more now than I ever have. It’s still novel being able to jump off a hill. 󲢻

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LOOKING FORWARD Spaceship Two Test Pilot Mark "Forger" Stucky Considers The Future of Free Flight by

T

here are pilots, and there are pilots: and test pilot Mark “Forger” Stucky is the epitome of the latter that his resume reads like fiction. How so? Well. He has over 10,000 hours in over 200 different types of aircraft. He’s flown sailplanes, transports, blimps, spaceships, fighters (including 1000 hours apiece in the F-4 Phantom, the F-16 Viper, the F-18 Hornet and the T-38 Talon). He has even flown the beyond-legendary SR-71 Blackbird. Forger has been at it for more than 40 years, nailing moonshot after moon-shot.

Forger’s resume reads so fictional, in fact, that fiction has actually used his real-life exploits as artful muses.

Great example: Remember that scene in Top Gun when Tom Cruise flips upside down over a Russian fighter and snaps a photo? ...Yeah. In real life, that was Forger, chasing down a Tupolev Tu-95 over the Sea of Japan.

These days, Forger’s target is set considerably higher than ever before (which is really saying something).

ANNETTE O'NEIL

On December 13th of last year, he and his co-pilot, Rick “CJ” Sturckow, piloted SpaceShipTwo—Virgin Galactic’s tourist spacecraft—above the US 50-mile space definition, for the first time after nearly a decade of testing and a mountain of setbacks. The pair reached an altitude of over 270,000 feet, reached close to Mach 3.0 and made some serious forward ground in the billionaire space race.

“I have a unique background,” Forger says. “I tell people you can’t plan for it. I kinda worked my way through a bunch of different things to get here, and every cloud did have a silver lining in my case.”

The biggest cloud by far: a fatal incident during a SpaceShipTwo test flight in 2014. Mike Alsbury—Forger’s wingman, co-pilot and closest friend—died. Virgin hired Forger after that profoundly traumatic accident.

“By that time, I had the most experience,” Forger continues, “and I actually was part of their interview process

already whenever they were hiring a new pilot. Somewhere in there, I basically asked them to save me a slot. They were kind of surprised by that, but they said, yeah, we will. And here I am.”

With all that said, it might surprise you that Forger’s happy place is considerably closer to terrain.

“I’m probably flying paragliders more now than I ever have,” he smiles. “It’s still novel being able to jump off a hill.”

Forger started hang gliding in 1974, inspired by a National Geographic article that had published in 1972. He was just 15, but managed to convince his pops to split the cost of a glider.

In May of that year, he took that glider to a little slope near Wilson Lake, Kansas, and made his first flight. With all the landmarks he has set in aviation in the madness of the OPPOSITE Mark "Forger" Stucky waives to fans. Photo Virgin Galactic.

RECORDS

are made to be

BROKEN.

NAA encourages pilots of ALL LEVELS of experience to set records.

Dozens of records are established each year.

Know the rules before you fly! ➽Is your FAI Sporting license valid? Check here:

old.fai.org/about-fai/fai-sporting-licences

➽Your Official Observer must not only be a member of USHPA, they must be independent and not be perceived to have a conflict of interest.

➽ Initial notification of a record claim must be filed via the NAA web-site within 72 hours of the attempt.

Learn more at:

naa.aero/records

(General Info & FAQs)

naa.aero/applications-downloads/

(Records & Sporting Codes Downloads)

GOOD LUCK!

30 US H PA P I LOT

󲢫 Landing a spaceship doesn’t get my heart rate up nearly as much as if I was landing a high-performance hang glider in a restricted landing field at high altitude in no wind. 󲢻 intervening years, he has never lost that passion for free flight.

For his personal flying, Forger likes to frequent the smattering of good winter sites located a short drive from his Palmdale home. He also likes to bop over to Crestline and Torrey Pines here and there. He’s interested in vol-biv. He loves flying cross-country, when the logistics make it possible; about a year ago, he picked up a paramotor. “I enjoy that a lot more than I thought I would,” he grins. “I was having a good time with it last Saturday.”

As it turns out, that “good time” is all Forger’s really after—with a side helping of personal challenge, of course.

“A number of years ago, I met a guy on the launch who was trying to set\ world records,” Forger remembers.

“He would go out every weekend, and I would ask him how it went. His reply was always, ‘Well, I only flew a couple hundred miles’ and this and that. He was kind of pissed off at the world. Well, that’s not fun for me. I want to go out there and have fun.

That’s the kind of flying I’m looking for. I set my own personal goals and do cross country, but I still have fun hanging out at the slope and doing a triangular course or something to challenge myself. To me it shouldn’t be about impressing other people.

“I’m not into competing with other people,” he notes, “but if I’m in a thermal with somebody, I am going to try to climb faster than them. It’s not because I want to be better than them, but because I want to be the best I can. If somebody is doing better than me, then obviously I’m not being the best I can be. Maybe I need to concentrate more. My personal challenge is to maximize my flights.”

A point of major curiosity, of course, is how the lessons of the unlikely fantasyland of Forger’s other flying have informed his free-flight career.

According to Forger, it actually works the other way around.

“I find that people ask a lot if I take the lessons I’ve learned in the other flying I’ve done to hang gliding and paragliding,” he ponders, “but instead I credit hang gliding and paragliding with teaching me lessons that I bring out to other places. For instance: I think I thermal in a sailplane better than average because of my hang gliding and paragliding experience; I don’t feel like I thermal a hang glider better because of my sailplane experience.”

Sure. But from a hang glider to a spaceship?

“Flying a spaceship as opposed to flying a hang glider is more complex, sure,” he says. “But that said, landing a spaceship doesn’t get my heart rate up nearly as much as if I was landing a high-performance hang glider in a restricted landing field at high altitude in no wind.

“Most spaceships are unique because they handle differently throughout the envelope,” he continues. “It’s an extreme envelope. But most of the time—if you’re gliding—SpaceShipTwo feels like a business jet. It is really straightforward and as easy to fly as a glider. It is easy to do spot landings with it, it’s easy to control your L/D and your flight-path angle.

It’s much easier than, say, the space shuttle. But by the same token flying it under 3Gs of longitudinal acceleration through the boost profile, when you’re going from near stall speed to the max allowable velocity—dynamic pressure really—and then all the way

USH PA PILOT 31

up to Mach 3, where the airspeed is him from program to program since dropping down real fast and you’re his early days.

“A flight test is not that different getting lighter. In there, the Mach effects* are getting more pronounced wherever you are,” he posits. “You’ve got pressure, whether that pressure and you have to use different techcomes from staying in business or niques in different parts of the flight just not wasting money and getprofile.”

According to Forger, moving ting your program cancelled. In the through that incredibly dynamic private sector, it is a smaller organizaspace is much like flying a high-pertion, so it works a little differently, of course. I never had the Secretary of formance hang glider, in that the the Air Force call me up and ask me pilot has to give different roll inputs if we should cancel a program—or at high and low speeds. ask me for my opinion on how it was “You just have to learn them,” he going—but I have had Branson pull notes. “The thing about a spaceship me aside and ask me how it’s going, is, either you’re accelerating like a what I’m doing, what’s next. It is nice mother or coming down in a glide. to have that kind of unfiltered comYou can’t say: Hey, this is interesting here, let me hold these conditions munication with the people that are and explore them a little more. Under heading the program. I enjoy that.” boost, the conditions are changing, The other thing that Forger is the Mach is changing, the air speed is known for in his rarefied world: his changing. So it’s really important to preternaturally incisive risk assessget that data back into a flight simument, which carries over very directlator so we can better train our pilots. ly into his free-flight pursuits.

You can’t do much training during “One thing that my military and the actual course of a flight. flight-test background has given me,” “As a test pilot, you want to get as he adds, “is to always have the sense much done as you can to minimize that it can happen to me: ‘it’ being a the number of flights,” he says. “You bad accident, or even just a bad day. don’t want to have to, God forbid, I think that definitely carries over repeat a flight. If you don’t get what to hang gliding and paragliding. I you need and they can’t use that data, always try to leave myself an out and, it is really expensive.” if possible, leave myself two outs. I As any pilot will agree, training and mean: If you are doing acrobatics, currency are of paramount imporyou should have a parachute. If you’re doing acrobatics over an area tance. When budgets like these are that’s infested with power lines—or on the line, that goes triple. Forger made up of places you wouldn’t want trains for each precious flight with to land a parachute—then you are all available time. For example: If there are six months on the calendar not leaving yourself an out.

“My other big lesson is that everyleft until the next flight, he’ll be in that simulator at least once a week, body should have an SIV under their banging through a full, multi-hour belt for a P-3 rating,” he admonishes. simulation that’ll have the full staff “Unless you’re only flying coastal ridge of the control room buried in their soaring sites, but even then: For a P-3 emergency procedure manuals. If rating, you need an SIV. Period.” there’s only a month between flights, When we’re assessing risk intellihe’ll do as many of those full-bore gently as pilots, of course, it’s always simulations as he can, then go in in pursuit of one goal: towards an there on his own every day regard(ideally, uninjured) future for ourless. He’s well known for this steely selves in the sport, so we can grow as work ethic, which he’s brought with athletes as the sport grows around

CALL FOR

NOMINATIONS Do you know someone who... ... is passionate about hang gliding and paragliding? ... is strongly motivated to help with the protection and growth of free-flight aviation? ... can both create and communicate goals to achieve their ideas, and then follow through on them?

Then please nominate him or her for the USHPA Board of Directors! You may also nominate yourself. (You do not need to re-nominate current directors.)

Directors are the cornerstone of the US Hang Gliding and Paragliding Association. They develop policy to support the USHPA's mission and represent our members in the sports of hang gliding and paragliding. Under USHPA’s new governance structure, directors will have more ability to bring about change than ever before-and heightened responsibility to go along with it. In addition to the qualities listed above, we’re seeking individuals who can see the big picture, who are willing to try new things, and who have ability to understand and work for all our pilots, regardless of any individual affiliations.

The USHPA welcomes and encourages your participation in this process.

We also encourage members with unique viewpoints (such as women pilots, younger or college-age pilots, instructors, etc.) to run and contribute their valuable perspective to the organization.

Director requirements include: -Participation in monthly board meetings via teleconference -Travel to board meetings once annually (some expenses reimbursed) -Active collaboration with committees -Representation of USHPA members, both regionally and nationally

Nomination Deadline: Sept 1 Submit your nomination online now at www.ushpa.org/USHPA/page/

call-for-nominations

us. When Forger looks towards that shared future in hang gliding and paragliding, he waxes philosophical.

“From a technical perspective,” he says, “paragliders just continue to improve. We make quantum leaps every few years; the newer generation is safer than the older generation, yet with better performance.

“That process is more stagnant with hang gliding,” he adds, “and I’m concerned about the future. You have aging of the sport, and the business, and the central minds that are critical to that business. I’m very concerned that they don’t have somebody to pass the torch to. I won’t be surprised when there’s a break in development in hang gliding that lasts until suddenly somebody realizes there is a new technology that we can apply to improve it. I feel like that’ll be the next renaissance.

“I would like to see lighter weights, better control, lower landing speeds,” he posits.

These aren’t idle observations, either. The last time Forger was inspired by such musings, hang gliding got a whole new wing. This was about 20 years ago, just after Forger had tried paragliding for the first time in 1992, at a paraglider instructor-certification clinic at Elings Park in Santa Barbara. (“They let me tag

ago,” he laughs. “I had an old handme-down wing. I went out and flew it one day, and it was just miserable.

The controls were sluggish, and it was a really rowdy day. Afterwards I thought, I am going to get a new competition-class glider and stop flying this old rag. Then I immediately had a second thought, which was: No, I’m going to get the best Falcon I can, and have fun with it.”

He then set about convincing Wills Wing to make him a custom Falcon with the latest transparent fabrics used on their competition double-surface ship, the T-2. Not only that: He wanted a carbon-fiber basetube. Forger didn’t quote them a price.

Instead, when they said it wouldn’t be worth their time, he simply asked them to quote him a price that would.

Wills Wing, predictably, called him crazy. He waited to see if they’d bite.

Eventually, they did.

“I paid a lot more for a stock glider,” he laughs. “I don’t want to take credit for everything, but I think almost all the Falcons they sell have Mylar sails and the clear fabrics you see on double surface gliders. People want to take pride in flying a beautiful-looking wing. And heck, it’s fun for me to go out and fly it.

“We are so concerned with high-end performance that I think it limits

ABOVE A portrait of the man. Photo

by Ben Horton.

sists. “If you look at paragliding, you have speed wings. I think it’s time to make a comparable speed-wing hang glider. I just argued for lower landing speed, I know, but by the same token

󲢫 There’s a lot to be said for simply going out and flying. I think for somebody to stay in for the long term—for decades—you just want it to be enjoyable. 󲢻 along and play student for some of the instructors,” he explains.) Lit up by the experience, he marched right in and told Wills Wing they needed to make a hang glider that’s more like a paraglider.

“I told them we needed a hang glider that was really simple to set up, with good enough performance for the average weekend pilot,” he remembers.

Soon thereafter, Wills Wing ended up developing the Falcon—their all-time best-selling glider.

“I did the same thing a few years 32 US H PA P I LOT

us,” he continues. “There’s a lot to be said for simply going out and flying.

I think for somebody to stay in for the long term—for decades—you just want it to be enjoyable. I don’t want to have to carry an extra 20 kilos because I’m trying to get a little more performance.” ...And how about taking some cross-disciplinary action from the paragliding world into hang gliding, while we’re at it?

“I think it’s time to do more than just rebuild the same glider,” Forger in-

you could make a smaller hang glider with really quick handling qualities and roll performance because it is so small, built to fly in higher winds.”

These days, this real-life starship captain’s goals are flying as free as he does.

“I would love to fly a wingsuit,” he muses, “And I joked a few years ago that I wanted to parachute from space. Of course, I can’t write my own ticket to the spaceship—but maybe someday. Stranger things have happened.”

USH PA PILOT 33

34 US H PA P I LOT

USH PA PILOT 35

CHASING THE

LAST

GLACIERS

Capturing Climate Change From Under a Wing

36 US H PA P I LOT

by ANNETTE O'NEIL photos by CODY TUTTLE

USH PA PILOT 37

Funny thing: I haven’t yet met a climate-changedenying free-flight athlete. Have you?

I

t’s an odd space we pilots occupy, as far as the sky goes. Whether we travel the world or soar a site close to our own backyards, we’re on the front lines of climate deterioration. I don’t have to tell you that—for many of us—the weather pulls our pursestrings and our heartstrings in equal measure, and it’s currently pulling very hard. With the sky over our heads changing the land under our feet and us hanging in the fraught middle, it’s impossible not to notice.

Pilot, entrepreneur and filmmaker Malcolm Wood certainly did. And, when he did, he was moved to act. He figured that there’s no more compelling perspective on climate change than the one we take in from the harness, so he teamed up with his filmmaker friend Craig Leeson and fellow pilot Dave Turner. The team set out to use

that documentary has been screened in more than 60 countries and translated into more than 20 languages. Sir David Attenborough himself called it “the most paragliders, tandems, and speedwings important film of our time.”) to get a camera where it wouldn’t have “There have been quite a few films been otherwise possible to deliver the taking quite a few different angles on evidence of climate change, to bring climate deterioration,” Malcolm says, awareness and create a catalyst for “but not a single one that does it through change to prevent further climate the eyes of a non-scientist who’s engagdeterioration. They called their nascent ing with the environment.” project, unfortunately fittingly, “The This very good idea, predictably, Last Glaciers”—as the project would be started with a bout of very bad weather. a bid to visually represent the change The way Malcolm tells it, he and Craig taking place on our planet through that were sitting on a mountain in the Alps, disappearing environmental icon. stymied in their plans to get a few nice It’s not the first time Malcolm and days in. A couple of drinks in, ideas Craig have had a hand in pointing a started flowing. It occurred to them flashlight into a particularly dark, dirty OPPOSITE Malcolm descends a fixed corner of our modern reality. When the ladder on Nepal’s 20,305’ Imja Tse as pair who were behind “A Plastic Ocean” the glaciers continue to open up making the ice falls impassable without the collaborated in 2017, they became the use of these steel ladders. BELOW Cinfirst to raise global awareness about the ematographer Cody Tuttle launches human addiction to single-use plastic from Mont Blanc’s Dome du Gouter and the havoc it wreaks on the enviduring the film’s first round of production in 2016. Photo by Alex Langslow. ronment and human health. (To date,

Malcom says. “It’s about what we need that it would be really interesting to go to be doing today to fix the problem, not around the world and document how whether or not it exists.” the sport is changing as the climate is Of course, fixing the problem in the changing. They reached out to a few local scientists (at a top research center in vacuum of awareness is a non-starter.

Grenoble). From there, the project gelled To change the game, Malcolm and Craig set about designing their documentary pretty quickly. to engage the audience in a different “They were doing some really great way than it had been done before: by work,” Malcolm enthuses. “It’s called looking through the eyes of free-flight the Ice Memory project. They are going athletes, in their uniquely tight-woven around pulling and preserving ice core samples from glaciers around the world. partnership with the natural world, capturing their evolving dance with the They are trying to preserve the data changing terrain from a very personal before it all melts and disappears.” perspective.

In their initial research, Malcolm and At time of our interview, the team had Craig discovered that, while close to 50% been shooting the film for just under of people in the US still don’t believe in climate change, every single scientist that they spoke to is unanimously panicked about it.

“It is not even a question for them,”

three years. Malcolm himself has been flying for around five years. (He started flying near his home in Hong Kong.)

Craig, somewhat hilariously, is extremely acrophobic—but a very good sport, a very good filmmaker and a very good friend.

“Right in the beginning, Craig discovered that the more extreme end of the extreme-sports spectrum, those guys are quite sensitive to the changing weather,” Malcolm notes. “If it is a particularly hot winter, you see more avalanches. You see more rain precipitation. And these seemingly small changes have massive effects on what you can do and how safely.

󲢫 It’s about what we need to be doing today to fix the problem, not whether or not it exists. 󲢻

38 US H PA P I LOT

USH PA PILOT 39

LEFT Malcolm Wood and Cody Tuttle speed ride down Chamonix’s Valle Blanche after climbing on the Mont Blanc massif. ABOVE Director of the film The Last Glaciers, Craig Leeson is shocked to find out that Peru’s glaciers are almost completely gone. Approaching what once was a large ice flow, he is left walking along dirt and rocks above 16,000’. Photo by Cody Tuttle

“The mountains are thermometers for global climate change,” he continues, “and so are free-flight pilots—so we are hyper-aware of their environment. We are essentially students of weather. All across this project, it has been quite interesting to hear and interview not just the scientists, but also the athletes on their perception of the problem as well.”

The team used quite a range of wings to achieve their ends. In the quiver: several lightweight tandems, lightweight speed wings and paragliders, mostly from Ozone and Level Wings (which Malcolm owns).

“Here we’re using the paraglider as a tool in the adventure,” Malcolm continues. “It’s used on the expeditions, and it’s used to get the team members safely out of the expedition areas, all the while filming. The wing is more than

just a means to complete an objective; it becomes a tool for actually producing the film.”

Malcolm is quick to mention that a lot of the sequences the team shot for this project have really stretched him as a pilot. It’s a pretty burly list of gets, too: Not only did he and Dave Turner fly off the top of Mont Blanc with speedwings, they attempted flights that had never been attempted before. For example, flying off one of the 6000-meters in the Cordillera Blanca range with Craig in a tandem (which they landed at 4500 meters). As a pilot, Malcolm insists that this process put him under pressure to nail bigger objectives than he probably would have attempted without the project looming underneath him.

“It fast-tracked a lot of progress,” he says. “We trained, as a team, for what we

could. We took it very seriously. Before doing certain trips, we did warm-up trips to make sure we had our process dialed and we worked well together as a team, because we were attempting things that could kill us if we got them wrong.

“The challenge around flying at such high altitude with a passenger was probably one of the greatest experiences I’ve ever had, just because it was so challenging,” Malcolm muses. “It was unrepeatable. It took us such a long time to get to, and there were so many unknowns. That was probably my favorite moment in terms of what I personally accomplished within the filming.”

Also of note: The team filmed over Antarctica, flying with NASA on their Antarctic expedition, which happens but once a year.

“It’s is the least populated place on earth,” Malcolm says, “and it was mesmerizing, sitting on the NASA plane, flying for a whole day without seeing one living thing. It was a great moment to reflect on how overpopulated we are.

That was definitely a special moment for me.”

The film is a truly beautiful, nail-biting—and, in places, quite funny—call to action about our current climatic predicament. (Malcolm refers to some of the team’s findings as “beyond shocking,” and he’s right.) “The Last Glaciers” is especially poignant for us rank-andfile free-flight pilots who see evidence of these changes every day at launch.

We, after all, sit with a particular kind of responsibility in knowing what we know in the uniquely intimate way that we know it.

“As a paragliding pilot, I think you have a greater awareness and understanding of the environment,” Malcolm says. “I think anyone with a greater understanding of what’s going on or what they are seeing should share those experiences, that knowledge, with other people. I hope that in some way, shape or form we can inspire other paragliding pilots to go and tell their stories, to share their experiences with more peo-

ple and try to help tackle this terrifying problem together, as a community.”

As the moment for any hope of reversal screams towards us on the horizon, it’s the very least we can do.

Malcolm Wood is an entrepreneur who is best known in Asia for his restaurant group Maximal Concepts. He has recently become the first paraglider pilot and film maker to join UN Environment’s campaign “Mountain Heroes,” a group that includes other famous athletes such as Canadian ice climber Will Gadd, Austrian cyclist Michael Strasser, Kenyan skier Sabrina Simader and adventurer Ben Fogle, helping to draw attention to emerging environmental issues in mountains including climate change, waste and biodiversity loss.

40 US H PA P I LOT

TOP With the mountains falling down around us due to the warming of the glaciers, the descent is often the most dangerous part of the climb. Malcolm Wood has been using ultralight paragliders to descend these objectives when conditions allow. Photo by Cody Tuttle. LEFT Malcolm Wood approaching basecamp on Imja Tse in Nepal’s Himalaya. Camps are continually being forced down lower in elevation in order to remain near a water source as the high camps that once held snow are now found dry. Photo by Cody Tuttle. ABOVE The team contemplates the risk/reward of moving up the mountain with the sounds of serac falls in the distance. Cordillera Blanca, Peru. Photo by Cody Tuttle RIGHT The Last Glaciers team heads out onto the Mont Blanc massif to take a closer look at the quickly decaying glaciers from the seats of their paragliders. Photo by Alex Langslow

USH PA PILOT 41

󲢍 I hope that in some way, shape or form we can inspire other paragliding pilots to go and tell their stories, to share their experiences with more people and try to help tackle this terrifying problem together, as a community. 󲢝

The University of Utah is known as one of the best mountain-town schools in the country. This year a group of students started the first Pargliding Club for the U of U faithful to tackle the free-flight learning curve at the Point of the Mountain

BUILDING THE

FREEFLIGHT COMMUNITY FOR A SUCCESSFUL FUTURE

by STEVE MAMMANO

F

or years, flight was inaccessible to humans. As long as it’s been imaginable, people have looked up to the sky and wondered how they could make themselves soar like a bird. We now live in an age where someone can spend his/her savings from the past month, buy some nylon, and join the birds. Encouraging growth of the sport in a positive way via expansion of the college-aged community is a solid way to keep hang gliding and paragliding thriving, well into the future.

As a college student at the University of Utah, it is hard to stand out as someone who participates in high-adventure outdoor activities. Other students are always trying hard to talk you down, by exclaiming about a gnarly line they skied or hard route they climbed.

42 US H PA P I LOT

Paragliding is one of the least popular and-flies. It was shocking, even from a sports among students here, but that new pilot’s perspective, how un-smart, is changing. More and more of my unsafe, and under-educated many of classmates are beginning to pursue it. the young people in the sport were. ObThe biggest problem in recruiting new serving these problems and talking to students is the college mindset which some people in this demographic, my is to have the most fun and excitement conclusion was that the skill deficit in as possible, for as cheaply as possible. new pilots was caused by the high cost As any experienced pilot reading this of a full education and lack of mentorwill know, that is not the way to develship.

The Paragliding Club at the Univerop a long flying career. Consequently, at Utah we realize there is a significant sity of Utah was formed to create a need to establish a community in the smart, safe, and educational way of sport in order to encourage young peo- expanding the number of youth in the freeflight community. We are not the ple to begin their careers as pilots. first ones to do this; the Hang Gliding Learning to fly at the Point of the Club at Virginia Tech has a great proMountain is great, but it is often described as sheltered. We have two easy gram that we were lucky to emulate. sites, plenty of schools, and straightThe ultimate goal of college clubs is to have an organization that can be forward conditions. After my initial training and P2 signoff, I began visiting replicated at other colleges and univerother sites and doing some simple hike- sities around the country, leading to

USH PA PILOT 43

the formation of new generations of pilots that can carry on the sport for generations. The Utah club is still very new, but we are utilizing a format that can be duplicated at other institutions.

This format was developed by adopting the program of the Virginia Tech Club, gleaning ideas from mentors, and collecting thoughts from club members.

The Format for Success

The first step for a club is finding a mentor, instructor, or school that is willing to help the club get off its feet.

Getting newcomers to become excited about free-flight, without having the resources to physically show them what it can be, is extremely difficult.

Your “consultants” need to do their best to provide the new club with some resources, whatever they can provide.

If it is a school, they could host a club field day, where new pilots can learn

how to put on a harness, do a little kiting, or even get a tandem flight. If individual mentors are providing this resource, they could attend a club meeting and relate their experiences, give a ground school, or maybe let members play around with an old beater wing in light conditions. It does not take much to get people excited about flying, but it does take something.

There will always be people who do not

ABOVE Paragliding club stoked at South Side, Point of the Mountain, Utah. OPPOSITE Steven Mammano flying in Little Cottonwood Canyon, Utah.

Photo by Ian Gillespie.

care about the sport, but maybe that’s because they do not know what it is all about. Doing something—such as providing an experience or relating an experience to someone who is new to the sport—can plant the seed in their

INSET Chris Santacroce getting Grace Cole in the air. RIGHT Steven Mammano flying in Jackson, Wyoming. Picture

by Addison Martin. BELOW Sofia Sant’Anna-Skites sunset kiting at North Side, Point of the Mountain, Utah.

brain and spark their interest.

Once the club has gathered members and generated some excitement, it can start trying to obtain more resources.

A good way to start is to register the college club as a USHPA chapter. Being a USHPA chapter allows the club to 44 US H PA P I LOT

develop a more structured outline, to utilize insured sites, apply for grants, and more. These grants can be put towards such things as equipment, transportation, apparel, or other costs for the club. This will allow the club to expand, without charging the club members.

Ideally, the club will have at least one experienced member, who is a P3 or above, and has completed an introductory instructor course. That person has a certain amount of legal protection to demonstrate the basics of freeflight to club members. This is especially important if the instructor and the members are affiliated with a university. For example, he/she could put on a harness, kite, and/or run down a small slope to show how cool the sport is. It's also important to note that many fine lines of legality in this process may be difficult to understand when going in blind. That’s why you’ll need to consult the great people at USHPA, who are an ideal resource in setting up instruction.

Members who have done some training with the provided resources

will likely keep coming back and want to learn more. This is where partnership for the club with a flight school can be ideal. Students in the club who have mastered the basics can advance to a flight school where they will be given permission to do more extended flights and signoffs. The advantage for the student will be the ability to start later in the learning process and, therefore, have to pay for fewer lessons with the school. The advantage for the school is that they will essentially be handed students who already have the basics down. Another advantage for the school is that those students will likely come to them to purchase their equipment. As leaders of the clubs, we are trying to facilitate this process simply to grow the sport. In receiving grants and maintaining club status with the university, the club is not allowed to be compensated in any way by the club members and is classified strictly as volunteer. These scenarios are a success for all sides and are great for the growth of the sport.

The final and most important part of

USH PA PILOT 45

󲢫 The lack of mentorship may cause unnecessary accidents. 󲢻 the college club is to provide a community for young pilots. The overwhelming majority of active, knowledgeable pilots is much older and, therefore, less connected to the younger generation. College-aged pilots often cannot find peers in the flying community to whom they can relate or ones they are not afraid of asking questions. In an age of YouTube tutorials, cheap gear online, and overconfidence, some would-be pilots believe they can figure this out on their own. But the lack of mentorship causes many unnecessary accidents in the free-flight world. Our club is open to this group of people as well and will offer everyone knowledge and partnership. Of course, as a college group, the advice of a thousand-hour pilot cannot always be given to fellow members. However, a young group

with a safe mindset and one that is constantly willing to learn will provide a smart community in which to grow.

The Future

The learning process in freeflight never stops, regardless of who you are. In the club, every person will be learning, from the fledgling who is learning how to put on a harness, to the student instructor who is trying to teach someone how to kite. As time passes, this learning process needs to be handed down and shared by all members. If the club only has one student as an instructor and he/she graduates, they will be left hanging. Passing down these skills and ideas is as vital as learning them in the first place. The same goes for enthusiasm; people are not attracted to the sport without it.

Carrying on experiences, new ideas, and stories keep people involved and coming back for more.

Opportunities to make our sport safer, smarter, and more fun are right in front of us. Pursuing the growth in college-aged communities is a great way to achieve these goals. This concept has been little known and under-utilized, but we as a freeflight community can change that. As an individual, you should be open to those in this demographic who do not have a community. If they do not have a community, encourage them to make their own, perhaps through a process like this. We are all accountable for growing our sport as well as making it safer and smarter. Go out, get active in your community, and make the positive changes you want to see made!

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EXPERIENCE MORE

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TRAINING

Lending a helping hand

[ contributed by BEN WHITE ]

How to Be a Good Mentee or Mentor Like a teenager who just received his/her driver’s license, a fresh P2/H2 pilot now has a license to learn. Novice pilots can launch, land, and generally navigate friendly terrain and weather on their own. They have a foundation ABOVE Transfer of a of knowledge to build on. After completing serene smile from support what could be compared to a relatively simple on the ground goes a long driving test, they now need to tackle what way to setting the mood for the whole flight. Photo lies ahead on the open road. This will require

by Partners in Post. more knowledge about all facets of paragliding or hang gliding, including, for example, challenging launches and landings, and the broad range of conditions in which we fly. Finding and connecting with a more experienced pilot or group of pilots in order to learn from them can be intimidating. But following a few basic guidelines will help maximize the experience for both mentor and mentee.

Mentor vs. Instructor

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There is a difference between a mentor and an instructor. Instructors can also be mentors and vice versa, but the relationships are different. After an instructor signs off on a novice

rating, the fledgling pilot is free to leave the nest and learn from others, who might not be rated instructors. An instructor provides the foundation of knowledge through purposeful and guided instruction and explanation. Beyond the training hill and classroom, a mentor is likely to explain things based on his/her own experience and on an as-needed basis. A mentorship is more like a friendship based on shared experiences, not a contract and set of goals outlined in a syllabus.

How to be a good mentee Mentor selection

Seeking a person to befriend you who has had experiences that sound like fun might be one of the first steps to finding a mentor Experienced pilots have more time in the air than less experienced pilots, and it shows. They appear at launch more often, handle their gear with confidence, take flight with ease, and land smoothly. Maybe they converse with others

USH PA PILOT 47

about a new launch or a trip to a foreign land.

Regardless of what calls your attention to an experienced pilot, identify what you’ve noticed and open a conversation about that topic, with the hope of beginning a new relationship.

Typically, these relationships are informal and lead to other friendships. And having more than one mentor to learn from is healthier for everyone involved.

Erika Klein, a hang gliding instructor based in California, suggests new pilots first “Look for someone whose decision-making is admirable,” and then “Look for a mentor who flies the way you want to fly.” A distance-record-setting cross-country pilot might not want to spend time with a mentee who has dreams of acrobatic flying, or who might be looking for a mentor in that area herself. Nick Greece has found in his travels that “picking folks you could take for a long road trip” as mentors is important, because driving to launch can involve precisely that. If a potential mentor is not enjoyable to be around, you’re better off spending time flying with those who elicit smiles. Of course, it’s equally important that you’re in the same category.

Make it easy for the mentor

Often, mentors do not pick their mentees; the mentee seeks out the mentor. Most experienced pilots are not instructors and do not benefit financially by sharing knowledge with less experienced pilots. They tend to bring a newer pilot to launch on days away from their daily responsibilities, so your demonstrating gratitude for their assistance is appreciated by the mentor. Communicate your knowledge

ABOVE Learning to smile from one of the best in the business—Chris Santacroce. Photo by Partners in Post.

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students and coffee to a more experienced instructor. Bringing snacks or chips and salsa to a flying day never hurts, especially if guacamole is included. Offering to trade a non-flying skill for a flying skill might go the furthest, allowing the roles to be reversed.

How to be a good mentor Say “thank you”

and ask specific questions. It’s important that the mentor see that you think for yourself but would like the perspective of a more experienced pilot. Saying, for example, “This launch seems too hard,” right off the bat is very differABOVE Mentors can be a ent from, “I noticed that the margin of error wealth of local knowledge and are able to point is small here; what have you done in the past things out you didn't see to set yourself up for success?” Starting off on the first pass. Photo by with, “This might be a stupid question, but…” is Ben White. better than being afraid of asking a question, and might even elicit a funny story about how a mentor learned the answer. Returning the laughter with a story about a silly mishap will only strengthen the relationship.

Bring something to the table and say “thank you.”

Bringing observations and a foundation of knowledge to be edited by a more experienced pilot’s perspective are the building blocks of a mentor-mentee relationship. Being personable and appreciative will put those building blocks into place. It is not necessarily a mentor’s job to ensure that a mentee understands everything that is said or demonstrated. As mentioned before, showing appreciation for a more experienced pilot’s perspective will help pave the way for more time with that pilot.

If learning to fly XC, offer to drive retrieve or organize a retrieve driver. Going for a hike or introducing a mentor to a potential new launch means that both pilots get to fly a new place and bounce ideas off each other. If you’re trying to become a better instructor, bring

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A new pilot’s mustering up the courage to overcome the fear of being thought stupid for asking, “Can I tag along?” is a huge compliment.

They have identified a skillset and an experience that they want to be a part of. Wisdom may suggest that the time is not right for them to tag along this week or month. Doing some research on who the new pilot is, by asking around, might encourage you to invite her the next time. Politely declining is also an option; however, taking the opportunity to give back to free flight and shape its future is far more rewarding. Being able to identify and appreciate a position of mentorship is not necessarily easy or identifiable, until a less experienced pilot has been tagging along for months or years, in which case a great friendship might have developed.

Communicate

The foundation to all relationships is clear, two-way communication and an understanding of all parties involved. Taking some time to know where they acquired their foundation of knowledge and what they want to build on top of it can save some stress and frustration.

Asking a mentee what they see and what new things are being introduced to their experience is an easy way to open lines of communication. However, it is not a mentor’s responsibility to hold a mentee’s hand. After learning what the mentee knows and the information he/she is seeking, a mentor should provide a clear, honest, objective perspective. Productive feedback looks different for everybody, and sometimes might require rephrasing. It is up to a mentee to ask for clarification if they need it. If a less experienced pilot has recognized that the conditions are somehow outside of his/her comfort zone, perspective about prior experience in strong conditions would be one of the most appropriate responses. Ultimately,

USH PA PILOT 49

of the community, a more experienced pilot can guide them to go towards an enjoyable direction of change. Blake Pelton, a USHPA Tandem Administrator, suggests being “an Respect newer pilots and the community example of what you want to see from your Spending years to become an experienced pilot community,” because newer pilots emulate involves spending years within the community more experienced pilots. Picking up trash on launch can be contagious and so can treating and seeing a variety of pilots and trends come landowners kindly. and go. Taking a less experienced pilot under The mentor-mentee relationship is often wing is an opportunity to shape the communia subtle one. Sometimes a highly revered ty in a new way, because newer pilots tend to mentor does not even know that a newer pilot be impressionable. Often, the most respected still looks up to him, even after years of flying pilots are looked up to not for their string together and friendship. When asked about pulling and weight shifting, but for the way his mentor-mentee relationships, Bridger they interact with their peers. Standing on a Henriksen, an Ozone team pilot, said that Cade pedestal higher than newer pilots is a great Palmer never formally or actively mentored way to alienate them. Grounding oneself and him. Bridger simply picked out somebody who speaking to them as equals is the best way to had what he wanted and was lucky enough garner their respect. Going one step further and introducing mentees to other experienced that Cade treated him with respect and propilots is an investment in the newer pilots’ vided perspective. Now, Bridger is one of the success and the growth of the community. best speed-wing pilots in the world, providing By respecting new pilots as people, instead of guidance to newer pilots and still looking to an annoyance, and treating them as the future Cade and other pilots for mentorship. mentorship is a relationship, and all relationships depend on clear communication to start, grow, and end.

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Hyper Fun!

[ product review contributed by JEFF SHAPIRO ]

Full feature flight computer that is as big as a deck of cards Whether I’m flying my hang glider or parain popularity of the “hike-and-fly” discipline within the sport of paragliding has created the glider at a local site, trying for a cross-counneed for an instrument catered specifically try “personal best,” or competing, having a reliable variometer can be beyond helpful toward getting the most features in the most relative to staying airborne. Over the years, compact and lightest package possible. flight instruments have evolved from needles Adventure flying, vol biv, and races like the and dials that scream when I’m going up to X-Pyr and X-Alps have always fascinated me. comprehensive, GPS-capable, fully interactive I’d even risk saying that dreams of back-counflight computers. It’s been fun to witness the try adventures involving just my feet and a progression but, also, a bit intimidating. The paraglider are what drove me to give paraglidinvestment necessary when purchasing a new ing a try after decades of hang gliding. While flight instrument has always made me want to preparing for the 2018 X-Pyr, I began seeking ensure that things like user-interface, reliabili- out a flight instrument that could provide the ty, size, weight and, of course, functionality are competition features and navigation requirea good fit for my needs as a pilot. ments (airspace, etc.) essential for that race.

After some research, I decided to try NavitMost manufacturers try to keep flying electronics to a size and shape compatible with er’s “mini Oudie” which they aptly named the foot-launch gliders. But the recent growth “Hyper.” After a few hundred hours of using my Hyper, I’ve been so impressed that I decided to write this short product review with the hope that it will help to educate anyone considering this cool little co-pilot.

I’ll make some comparisons with the Oudie relative to size and some functionality but will refrain from comparing it to other flight instruments, especially those I don’t have personal experience with. This is not to promote this instrument as “the best” but only to

󲢫 The recent growth in popularity of the “hike-and-fly” discipline within the sport of paragliding has created the need for an instrument catered specifically toward getting the most features in the most compact and lightest package possible. 󲢻 50 US H PA P I LOT

USH PA PILOT 51

explain some of the features, and to describe which ones have worked extremely well for me, and why.

First, let’s start with the obvious. My Oudie 4 is 135 x 86 x 25 mm and weighs 345 grams. It’s totally reasonable, but not small and not light.

In comparison, my Hyper is 106 x 68 x 17 mm and weighs 135 grams. Pretty significant difference. For reference, an I-Phone X is 71 x 144 x 7.7 mm and weighs 174 grams. My Hyper “feels” incredibly light for what it is, and is easy to carry in my kit. It Velcros to my flight deck, taking minimal space, which is nice because while competing I use two instruments to insure that a back-up track of my flight is recorded. Along with my paired phone/XC Tracer combo and an inReach Mini, my Hyper fills out the flight deck with room to spare.

The Hyper has four main screens: Compass Rose, Map and Terrain #1, Map and Terrain #2 and a Menu screen.

The two Map screens are full color, customizable and have defined and easy-to-see features. One of the things I like most about the Hyper is its simplicity. This instrument is super intuitive and maintains a standard layout (also customizable) for each of the three navigation and flying screens.

Because of the consistency, I find that my eyes easily find the information I’ve set in my “Nav Boxes” for each screen, even if the boxes describe different values. For instance, while switching from my “general flying” page in one scale, to my more zoomed-in “waypoint and landing” page, that continuity allows a quick glace to inform me, leaving more “brain bandwidth” for decisions and active flying during critical moments in a flight, or when the air is a bit rough.

For being a smaller instrument, I find the screen is large enough to be clear, and is easy to read. It’s also “transflective,” cutting glare and shadow in varying light. I’ve never personally had a problem reading the Hyper, even in direct sunlight. The touch screen is useful and glove compatible, but one of the coolest things about the Hyper is, unlike the Oudie, it also has seven tactile buttons which make finding

a waypoint, switching screens or even something as simple as turning the volume up or down super straightforward and fast. I found this to be extremely valuable while wearing larger gloves during a winter or higher-altitude flight. For me, having the buttons along with the touch screen is one of the features I like most about this instrument, as simple as it may sound.

The Hyper is similar to the Oudie in that it shows color-coded airspace boundaries and can be programed to give proximity warnings.

In the X-Pyr, I found this to be super helpful to ensure I didn’t violate regulations relating to National Parks, height restrictions or high-traffic airports. If I was close, I’d hear the beep, look down to confirm I was getting close and in two more pushes of a single button, could switch to my second “Map and Terrain” page where I had a much smaller scale set and could easily see where I was in relation to the boundary.

This made avoiding those severe time penalties easy and straightforward. Once again, because I knew I’d hear a beep before any violation, I was more able to keep my mind free from concern and more able to focus on centering that thermal instead of looking at my instrument.

Speaking of which, when climbing in the light stuff, I’ve found the Hyper’s “thermal assist” feature to be pretty useful. I honestly never thought I’d use an instrument to help me map a thermal but, when it’s super light and shifty, an occasional glance down to see the circles I’ve been laying, along with the color-coded representation of strength within that thermal, makes shifting back to the place I see was the strongest punch of lift both simple and straightforward. I used my Hyper as a stand-alone vario while doing instructional cross-country tandems in Colombia this year and, along with some of the cool features like the thermal assist, I found it to be a very reliable and sensitive variometer in its simplest form as well.

The dedicated GoTo button has made finding a task point, waypoint, or things like the last

ABOVE Hyper modes (from top): compass rose, map and terrain 1, map and terrain 2, menu.

thermal I encountered or the direction back to takeoff as easy as can be. I find task navigation to also be super intuitive and easy using both Map and Terrain pages and the Compass page.

The “north up” compass rose contains both a pointer to the next waypoint and a windsock icon to help me make decisions quickly relative to lines, which aspects I might want to try in the mountains and, of course, for landing.

Also on the compass, a red/yellow ball clearly shows the direction to the last thermal, in case you need to go back to stay off the ground.

Some of these features are found on many of the flight instruments being offered. Although it mostly boils down to preference and, perhaps, reliability, what I like most about the Hyper is that it clearly does its job

󲢫 That extra battery life is nice on the long hike-and-fly adventures for both maintaining a track log and for maintaining essential features while flying. 󲢻

52 US H PA P I LOT

in a super-simple way and in a very small and compact package. But what most of the other instruments out there don’t do is lay a track while you’re hiking. The Hyper’s “Hike and Fly” feature keeps an IGC logger on permanently so I will have a complete track recorded of both my flying and hiking. For adventure races or to be able to see (and learn from) my entire adventure, this is a really cool feature! As an example, during a race a miscommunication the evening before caused my inReach to not have an adequate charge to last until the end of the day. The live tracker that the organization gave me had “lost connectivity,” leaving a large hole in my track log for the day. When I was asked for a backup of the track, which needed to include my hiking track, I was very happy that the Hyper had indeed recorded a clean file of what was needed to stay in the race!

While I mention battery life, it’s important to note that the Oudie has 12 hours of battery life, which is plenty for normal flying days and actually pretty impressive relative to its CPU. In contrast, the Hyper has between 12-36 hours of autonomy (battery life). The battery obviously lasts longer when I’m not laying down a track point in super-short intervals (e.g. every second). That extra battery life is nice on the long hike-and-fly adventures for both maintaining a track log and for maintaining essential features while flying. With the Hyper’s fast charge capability, I can plug it into an alternate battery pack at the end of the day, or plug it into the solar panel I have for adventure flying, and it seems to charge very efficiently.

There are so many good choices available to free flyers today, sometimes it’s hard to sift through all the features and try to determine which is best. But if you’re looking for a reliable and fully featured GPS/variometer in a rugged, small and lightweight package, I’ve personally not found a better choice than the Hyper. If you’re interested in this cool piece of kit, and have questions, feel free to reach out to me on Facebook or Instagram via message, or reach out to Steve Kroop at Flytec USA. I also should note that over the years, I’ve never had better customer service than I’ve received from Steve. To me, that’s been worth its weight in gold.

Have fun out there, and I’ll hope to see you at base!!

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Weather To Fly

[ contributed by HONZA REMANJEK ]

Weather Forecasting 101

WEATHER

To become proficient at soaring flight requires advancement on two fronts. The first and most obvious is the gradual yet constant improvement of piloting skills. The second is a relentless quest to better understand the dynamics of the invisible medium into which we choose to cast ourselves. This article is aimed to focus on the latter.

Having a basic understanding of meteorology is fundamental to the safe and enjoyable pursuit of soaring flight. As pilots, we start to develop a basic mental model of how the air behaves. We continually refine this mental model throughout our flying career. In practice, we usually arrive at launch with some knowledge of the weather forecast for the given area. To this forecast, we have to add our prior experience of what a similar forecast in the past actually meant for flying conditions. We then take a moment, before choosing to fly, to assess whether the conditions are similar to or different from what we had anticipated. Based on this assessment, and an honest evaluation of our pilot skills, we make a fly/no-fly decision.

Finally, if we choose to launch, we quickly find out if our assessment of current conditions from the ground matches up with what we feel when we are in the air.

If conditions in the air are very different from what we inferred them to be while sitting on launch, then we need to refine our mental model of how the air behaves. The reason why we have to continually update and improve this mental model is that the relatively small, micrometeorological features that we encounter are not resolved on the relatively coarse grids of operational weather models. Much of what we fly in is considered sub-grid scale. Examples of these sub-grid, micrometeorological features are: turbulence, thermals, ridgetop compression of wind, valley winds, and small-scale venturi effects caused by acceleration through gaps. The takeaway message is that weather models see a much-smoothed-out version of the topography and the surface type over which we choose to fly.

However, weather models are increasingly accurate at predicting the arrival of large weather systems over our region. They are also good at forecasting the general, synoptic wind associ54 US H PA P I LOT

ated with these systems. Generally speaking, high-pressure systems will have light synoptic winds. This is because the pressure gradient, which leads to wind, is weak in a high. Pressure gradients are depicted on a surface-pressure chart by isobars, contours of equal pressure values. A surface-pressure chart resembles a topographical map. Regions of high pressure have clear skies because air is sinking slowly overhead. Sinking air warms due to compression and clouds tend to dry out and dissipate.

Conversely, a low-pressure system, with its associated fronts, will be windier. The pressure gradient is much stronger in a low. The isobars often resemble a bullseye. Clouds and rain are associated with a low-pressure system due to widespread lifting of air over the region. Rising air cools due to expansion, eventually cooling enough to reach its dew point. The level at which this occurs is the cloudbase. It should be noted that the widespread sinking rates in a high and lifting rates in a low are generally very slow compared to the sink rate of a soaring aircraft.

The synoptic wind that is forecast is an important piece of knowledge that a soaring pilot needs to keep in mind. If your flying site is strictly a ridge-soaring site then you want to know the forecast strength and direction of wind for that elevation and maybe one level above. If you plan on soaring up in thermals, it is imperative to be aware of the strength and direction of the synoptic wind at multiple levels. These levels range from the surface all the way up to several thousand feet above the highest level where you anticipate thermals to reach. This is because if strong wind exists overhead it can mix down on a day with good thermals.

As a novice pilot, it is particularly important to your safe progression to avoid flying in very windy situations. Strength of turbulence increases as a square of the wind speed.

Turbulence produced by a 20mph wind will be four times as strong as it would be in a 10mph wind. This is why being aware of the forecast synoptic wind is very important. However, this is still not enough. As discussed, the models do not resolve the true topography. Wind can compress and accelerate over a ridge or through a

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saddle or gap. It can be blocked by topography or it can even stagnate on the upwind face of certain mountains. The wind does not see the terrain the same way we see it. It tries hard to smooth it out. It does so with a combination of stagnation zones and eddies that we often call rotors. Observing how water interacts with large boulders in a stream is a very useful exercise in starting to build a mental model of how wind interacts with terrain.

Visualizing wind already starts to get complicated if we just think of the forecast wind interacting with complex topography, but it actually gets far more intricate. This is because the wind that we feel at any particular spot is a superposition or summation of winds at different scales. At least three scales should be considered: local, regional, and synoptic.

Local winds are upslope and up-valley winds that set up as a result of the sun heating the surface, which in turn heats the overlying air.

The air above the surface heats up, decreases in density, and naturally begins to flow upslope, eventually peeling off skyward as a thermal. A thermal can best be thought of as an invisible smokestack that we can circle around in and gain elevation. This is the magic of soaring flight! If a thermal reaches high enough and cools enough for its air to reach dew point, it will suddenly become visible and manifest itself as a cumulus cloud.

Over higher terrain, once it is mostly snowfree, it becomes easier to heat up the air than out over the adjacent plains. A daily pressure drop of a few millibars will be common in the summer months over the mountains. This is an example of a regional heat-low. It sets up and dissipates on a daily cycle. In response to this pressure drop, a low-level flow develops from the plains to the mountains. This flow strengthens valley winds, especially in the large principal valleys. These valley winds can become strong enough in summer months that landing in a valley mid-day can be overwhelming. This is especially true if the valley narrows and this regional wind accelerates to speeds faster than the forward speed of our gliders.

Weather forecasts will not resolve this wind!

The models do not resolve mountain valleys.

Understanding of the daily cycle of local and regional winds can help a soaring pilot anticipate strong valley wind. In some mountainous areas in late spring and summer, a strong valley

󲢫 As a novice pilot, it is particularly important to your safe progression to avoid flying in very windy situations. 󲢻 wind can start to set up as early as 10 or 11 a.m. and can blow past sunset. However, the launch site that might be several thousand feet above the valley will probably be above the depth of the valley wind. Under synoptically benign conditions, when a high pressure is centered over your area, there might be only nice thermal cycles flowing up the face of the mountain.

This can lure the unaware pilot into the sky.

There can be a strong, fast-moving river of air flowing through the landing area in the valley below.

As a novice pilot, it's important to understand that just because someone else is flying does not necessarily mean that conditions are appropriate for your skill level. For the first few years in your flying career, it is important to realize that it is very likely that you do not know what you do not know. Approaching soaring flight with this humble realization coupled with motivation to constantly better your piloting skills and continually refine your mental model of how the air behaves will gradually reward you with amazing cross-country flights.

For a soaring forecast, it is worth subscribing to XC Skies, whose goal is “to provide timely and highly useful soaring forecasts to allow pilots to make better decisions on when and where to fly.” Additionally, windy.com is a free service that allows access to two global models for comparing forecasts. Lastly, it is very useful to learn to read a balloon sounding called a Skew-T. This is especially true if there is a weather balloon launched near your flying site. There are many online tutorials on how to read such a sounding and on the very relevant topic of atmospheric stability.

LIVING THE DREAM A Chat with Two of Hang Gliding's Long-time Instructors on How They Turned a Passion into a Career

I

s your flying community vibrant and growing? If it is, chances are good that you’re in an area with a strong school and/or an active instructor. Without new/student pilots to invigorate our communities, our flying population will continue to decline.

USHPA membership statistics—and just casual observations made at local hang gliding sites—indicate the number of hang glider pilots in the US has been diminishing in recent years. But not everywhere, and with an eye toward gaining some tips for reversing that trend, I’ve asked a couple of the most prolific new-pilot producers across the country to share their observations and teaching strategies.

Lookout Mountain Flight Park (LMFP), in Georgia, and Kitty Hawk Kites (KHK) in North Carolina’s Outer Banks, have long been among the leaders in hang gliding training. I picked the brain of LMFP’s Matt Taber and KHK’s Bruce

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by C.J. STURTEVANT says, “I was part owner of a dive shop startup on the Outer Banks. Going in and out of the inlet in the dive boat, I watched the pelicans soaring the wake of the boat. I found their flying skill incredible and the way they used the Who are these guys? lift off the curling wake fascinating.”

Matt Taber has been surrounded by One day, on his way to the marina, he aviation his whole life—his dad was spotted a couple of hang gliders making a fighter pilot in WWII and a career passes—back and forth—on the Nags soldier his entire life. Matt grew up Head dune. He pulled over to get a on Air Force bases, “a new one every better look, and, he says, “I was blown couple of years,” he recalls, and he’s away—this was a far cry from my first loved all kinds of aircraft for as long exposure to hang gliding! These guys as he can remember. “I was completely were flying with great precision and smitten with flight,” he says, but when skill, flying inches off the dune, one pilot he checked out a hang gliding meet in New Hampshire in the early ‘70s, he was even touching his wingtip to the dune, dragging it and then flying to the next not excited. “The gliders were cool,” he explains, “standards and very affordable, 180-degree reversing turn. These aircraft and pilots were flying just like the pelibut the many crashes into the chairlift towers and trees left me thinking that cans! I knew at that moment that I was hang gliding was a defective way to fly.” going to be a hang glider pilot, and I was It took pelicans to revise that initial going to do my best to pilot a glider like assessment of hang gliding. “In 1977,” he those two guys” Weaver in hopes of gleaning some insights about how these schools have made their teaching work so well for so many years.

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Bruce Weaver, also, has been enchanted by flying for as long as he can remember. “As a kid,” he recalls, “I would lie in the grass and watch the planes fly high overhead, wondering what it must feel like for the people inside and dreaming about what great adventures they must be heading to. I finally got my chance to find out: I was 10 when I flew to an exotic land to the south...Florida!” A typical 10-year-old, he was so excited the night before that he couldn’t sleep, and remembers getting out of bed in the middle of the night, dressing in his best clothes and anxiously waiting to head to the airport. “That first trip in an airplane confirmed everything I’d imagined about flying,” he says, and admits, “I was hooked. I spent the rest of my youth chasing the dream.” Early on, he pursued a private pilot’s license, but didn’t get very far before he ran out of money. He then turned to sailplane training, but again came up short financially before achieving his license.

It was on another family vacation, as they drove by Jockey’s Ridge and watched the hang gliders skimming down the sand dune, that Bruce finally found his ticket to fly. “I didn’t know a thing about hang gliding,” he says, “but those people were flying and I wanted to be a part of it.” The next day he took a lesson with Kitty Hawk Kites; after the lesson his instructor casually mentioned that Kitty Hawk Kites had taught him to fly and then taught him how to teach hang gliding—all for free. “That was it!” Bruce exclaims. “I’d finally found my path into the air!” He signed up for lessons, started training during his next summer vacation, and has been at KHK ever since.

“Hang gliding has been very good to me,” Bruce muses, adding, “My flight experiences and adventures have surpassed anything my youthful imagination could have ever dreamed up.”

From Student Pilots to Instructors: Both Matt and Bruce are products of Kitty Hawk Kites’ unique student-to-instructor training program.

Prior to hang gliding, Matt was already

󲢫 I was in a unique position that allowed me to take people who were expecting to do something amazing and help them achieve that and, almost every time, surpass their expectations. 󲢻 a teacher of a variety of outdoor sports: snow skiing, water skiing, scuba diving, swimming… “I’ve always loved the reward of participating in someone’s learning experience,” he says. “I was always trying to make the process as smooth and rewarding as possible. I learned early in life that, if you are working at something that you love, it doesn’t feel like you’re working at all.”

As an instructor, his “loves” included meeting new people who were excited about whatever sport he was teaching, and sharing with them his passion for that sport. At a time when he was ready to make some changes in his life and had sold his part of the dive shop, he spotted a newspaper ad: “Hang gliding instructor wanted, will train if qualified.”

His curiosity was piqued; really excited about the prospect of learning to teach a new-to-him sport, he hoped that he was what Kitty Hawk Kites was looking for. He was. “Training with KHK to be a pilot and then an instructor was an incredible experience for me,” he recalls, adding (not surprisingly), “I loved every OPPOSITE Matt Taber with student Rudder Pearce, photo Lookout Mountain Flight Park. BELOW Bruce Weaver briefs pilots at the 2019 KHK Spectacular. Photo by Paul Voight.

minute of it.”

Bruce’s main motivation for becoming an instructor was simply learning how to fly at a price he could afford. The KHK program allowed him to do exactly that—free is as affordable as it gets! “I was taught how to fly and then I was taught how to teach other people to fly,” he points out. “It started out as a way to get myself in the air and keep me busy seasonally while I wasn’t flying or having some other sort of adventure.” Over the decades, that original motivation has morphed into so much more than that: Bruce has been instructing with KHK for his entire adult life.

What motivates these instructors to keep at it for decades?

Matt’s passion and love for hang gliding bubbles throughout his response to this question. “It’s still incredibly rewarding to be part of the process of guiding someone through the learning experience of what they have dreamed about,” he enthuses. “Then, watching them succeed and become a competent pilot… Maybe even more rewarding is igniting the passion of flight in someone who initially just wanted to ‘check it out.’ When you think about it,” he muses, “it’s incredible that we can hang glide, safely flying thousands of feet in the air with great control and then landing like a bird, when we want to come down. I have so many folks tell me, ‘I can’t thank you enough. Flying hang gliders is the best thing that I have ever done! It has changed my life!’ To hear this from someone is so rewarding! What else can you do as work that provides such a profound experience in someone’s life?”

He adds, with emphasis, “I love my job, my life!”

Bruce may be a bit less bubbly than Matt, but he clearly is equally passionate, equally enamored of his lifestyle.

As a new instructor, he quickly realized that “I feed off the energy and enthusi-

asm of my students. I was in a unique position that allowed me to take people who were expecting to do something amazing and help them achieve that and, almost every time, surpass their expectations. It’s not very often in other walks of life that you regularly get feedback like ‘That was the best thing I’ve ever done!’ or ‘I’ve never had so much fun in all my life!’ I have found a way to be a part of that and get that sort of positive feedback on a regular basis.

That’s hard to give up!”

How are schools like LMFP and KHK impacting the future of hang gliding?

“LMFP is focused on the complete A-to-Z learning and teaching experience,” Matt points out. “We teach foot launch, aerotow, surface tow. We integrate tandem flights with solo foot launch and surface tow to optimize the learning curve, increase safety and experience.

LMFP has so many tools to improve the learning experience, and we constantly strive to improve, to make learning easier, safer and more rewarding. We impact the future of hang gliding by continuing to teach so many new pilots to the novice level, with a focus on safety, ease of learning and a fun and rewarding experience. No one has to fly hang gliders and paragliders. We do our best to make it so easy and so fun that our students will want to continue to fly, will desire to become a safe, proficient, self-reliant pilot.”

Bruce feels fortunate to have come up through KHK’s system that he describes as “taking enthusiastic and passionate young people and introducing them first to the sport of hang gliding and, then, to the joy of teaching hang gliding.

At a time when our sport is continuing to search hard for young enthusiasts, I see them every summer. Every year we create young, well trained and passionate advocates of hang gliding who are eager to share their enthusiasm. The fruits of the program can be seen in many of the schools throughout the country. I see the future of hang gliding in these people, and I take pride in their accomplishments both here and as they 58 US H PA P I LOT

take on larger roles in the hang gliding community.”

How do you keep students engaged during training and after they’ve achieved their ratings?

“Individualized mentoring,” says Matt, emphatically. “Our instructors take a personal interest in each student’s flying, both their successes and what they need to work on. Additionally, the LMFP flying community has lots of activities: trips to new sites and to vacation destinations, ongoing clinics and activities. And of course we preach practice, practice and more practice, and we’re constantly coaching and instructing in a positive way.”

Bruce distills that mentoring concept down to the basics: “In my experience, the easiest way to keep new pilots engaged before, during and after training is constant communication, enthusiasm and positivity.”

What characteristics/factors do you think make for a successful instructor?

Matt re-iterates the personal-attention factor: “I honestly and genuinely am interested in my students: who they are, where they live, why they want to fly, etc. I want my students to succeed, to be good safe pilots, to progress, and to be as passionate about flying as I am. You can’t fake this—you either have it or you don’t.” But, he adds, there’s more: “To be a good instructor you need to have BELOW One amazing perk for teaching at KHK is the opportunity to learn—and teach students—to fly the 1902 Wright glider. Photo by Cory Godwin.

and show empathy. A good instructor needs to be a good cheerleader—this is one of the most important characteristics of a successful instructor. We instructors are guides showing the way, through demonstration and encouragement. We instructors know the conditions that are suitable to teach in, the conditions that make the best learning experience, and what equipment works best for this environment. One of the most important characteristics of a successful instructor is to keep the learning experience non-threatening and progress each student at his or her own pace, building skills one skill block at a time.” Matt believes that knowing these elements have made him an effective and successful instructor—“that,” he grins, “and a bit over 40 years of experience plus a lot of enthusiasm.”

Bruce again distills a complex concept down to a few words: “Personal attention, a passion for flight and for teaching, and a deep desire to see my students succeed.”

How has your school’s instruction style/technique evolved (or stayed constant) over the years in response to advances in glider design?

Both LMFP and KHK have revised and updated their teaching styles over the decades. Matt explains, “Our instructional techniques at LMFP are constantly changing and evolving based on what has been discovered in our industry or at our school. We are always intrigued with what new systems are available or what new gliders have been developed.

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If it looks promising, we will invest time and money into testing to determine if, in fact, we should be going down that path.”

Bruce’s teaching style has also evolved over the years, he says, “but not in response to changes in gliders or liability or culture. Like anything else, the more practice you get, the better you are. If anything, I’ve been able to boil down my instructions to the base elements of learning. I found that if my students could have small successes early, they were more likely to stick and move forward faster. I found that the easiest way to accomplish those successes is to have my students focus on relaxing and looking ahead. If they can manage that, everything else becomes much easier.

Turns out,” he muses, “that works pretty well in other parts of life as well.”

What’s your personal philosophy on instruction?

To Matt’s mind, “There are no bad students. A challenging student is an opportunity for an instructor to shine, to modify the program for optimum success for that student. Learning anything new can be humiliating; empathize with a student’s frustrations and insecurities, let them know it’s OK to progress more slowly than you think you should, or slower than your wife :-). Keep the instruction non-threatening—making every student’s flying fun, rewarding and safe is an instructor’s mission!”

Bruce believes that students “don’t take their first lesson to learn about hang gliding—they take their first lesson to fly!” With that in mind, KHK teaches a very brief ground school and gets students in the air quickly with short, controlled flights. “When students have the small early successes, they are eager to learn more. Relax and look ahead,” he reiterates, and adds, “Don’t overthink it. Master your launch.

It sets the stage for the rest of your flight.”

What’s your favorite training glider?

Matt’s students train on Wills Wing Alphas at LMFP—“They are the easiest, slowest and safest. For our advancing

ABOVE Matt Taber. Photo courtesy Lookout Mountain Flight Park.

students we use Wills Wing Falcons for solo aerotow and as an alternative for mountain flying as a student gains experience.”

Bruce trains at Kitty Hawk in coastal winds on a sand dune. “We’ve found the easiest glider to teach with on the dunes is an Eaglet in various sizes. Once our students have mastered the basics, we transition them to a Wills Wing Alpha or Falcon.”

Matt’s insider secrets re: making a living teaching what you love: “It’s not one thing,” he explains. “At Lookout Mountain Flight Park, we focus on being a destination for the pilots that we train. From the very beginning, when it was just me, I’ve preached the Three E’s (a carryover from my days as a PADI scuba instructor) to my students and instructors: 1) Education: have the best training program you can; 2) Equipment: as a pilot you can’t fly without equipment! Get your gear from your instructor; 3) Experience: make sure your students and pilots get experience flying in a variety of ways. Mentor your students to become safe, competent, self-reliant pilots. You can teach someone to fly, but if they don’t have the gear and a place to use it, then they will not stay in the sport. I try to make flying convenient for my students and pilots. I emphasize practice, practice and more practice. It’s hang gliding and it’s fun and incredibly rewarding!”

How do your new students hear about your school?

Bruce points out that hang gliding in general is becoming more invisible as our numbers and our sites decrease. “It’s

increasingly important,” he says, “to get in front of potential students any way you can. KHK uses social media, website, print advertisements, radio, and articles.

We are also fortunate to teach in a highly visible location. But our number-one source for new students continues to be via word-of-mouth. That is why we are constantly driving to exceed the expectations of our students.”

Speaking for LMFP, Matt says, “We advertise in various ways, including billboards and our websites, www. hanglide.com and www.flylookout.com.”

But he totally agrees with Bruce: “Wordof-mouth is our best source of new students.”

What words of advice/caution would you have for a pilot who is considering becoming an instructor?

“Do it!” Matt exclaims, and repeats his philosophy: “Do something you love for work, and you’ll never work a day in your life!”

Bruce points out that “Teaching is serious fun. Take the safety and well-being of your students seriously, but don’t lose sight of the reason they’re learning to fly: Fun!” Kudos From Matt: “Thanks to John Harris for the opportunity and the program he runs; to Jim Johns for being the best friend, mentor and flying buddy one could have; to Steve Pearson and Mike Meier of Wills Wing for the incredible investment in easier and better training gliders, first gliders and the rest of their fleet of awesome wings that they build.

LMFP is dedicated to making learning to fly hang gliders safer and easier. Wills Wing is responsible for the best training equipment made that will continue to make flying hang gliders easier and safer.”

From Bruce: “I’ve been fortunate over the years to work with some of the best and brightest instructors and pilots in the business. I’ve learned something from each of them and I’m still learning, even from some of our first-year instructors.”

Ratings Issued March/April 2019 RTG RGN NAME

Take your ratings and expiration date everywhere you fly.

Download from the Members Only section of the USHPA website.

Print, trim, and store in your wallet. Great for areas without cell coverage.Always available at www.USHPA.aero Save the PDF on your mobile device for easy reference.

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H1 H1 H1 H1 H1 H1 H1 H1 H1 H1 H1 H1 H1 H1 H2 H2 H2 H2 H2 H2 H2 H2 H2 H2 H2 H2 H2 H2 H2 H2 H2 H2 H2 H3 H3 H3 H3 H3 H3 H3 H3 H3 H3 H3 H3 H3 H3 H3 H4 H4 H4 H4 H5 P1 P1 P1 P1 P1 P1 P1 P1 P1 P1 P1 P1 P1 P1 P1 P1 P1

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Jonathan Jefferies John Hoseman John Hoseman Marc Noel Radloff Kelly A. Kellar Nathan Alex Taylor Kelly A. Kellar Lisa Dickinson Steve Van-Fleet Rob Sporrer Marc Chirico Rob Sporrer Stephen J. Mayer Nathan Alex Taylor Steve Van-Fleet Alejandro Albornoz Jonathan Jefferies Nathan Alex Taylor Christopher Grantham Jonathan Jefferies Steve Van-Fleet Jerome Daoust Philippe Renaudin Philippe Renaudin David John Hebert Stacy Whitmore Robert Black Jeffrey J. Greenbaum Rob Sporrer Robert Posey Steve Van-Fleet Steve Van-Fleet Robert Posey Jeffrey J. Greenbaum Fred Morris Stephen J. Mayer Robert Black Jeffrey J. Greenbaum Robert Black Jesse L. Meyer Jeffrey J. Greenbaum Robert Black Robert Black Robert Black Jeffrey J. Greenbaum David (Dexter) Binder Steve Van-Fleet Steve Van-Fleet Steve Van-Fleet Gabriel Jebb Steve Van-Fleet Rob Sporrer David (Dexter) Binder Steve Van-Fleet Rob Sporrer Steve Van-Fleet Steve Van-Fleet Steve Van-Fleet Robert Black Jerome Daoust Steve Van-Fleet Allen Thoe Rob Sporrer Jordan Neidinger Stephen Nowak Misha Banks Jonathan Jefferies Jonathan Jefferies Jonathan Jefferies Rob Sporrer

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Jack Thomas Herrin Sarah Lehman Curtis Navarre Alex Navarre Michelangelo Nicholas Michael Pennings Tyler Petreshock Andriy Wybaczynsky Alicia Lynne Blevins Christopher Brady Mark Cantrell Will Chambers Kit Fieldhouse Kevin Harvey Noah Hurley Gary Schnakenberg Derek Bartlem Mathew Zalk Derek Beaumont Robert John Warmbir Clif Hodges Andres Felipe Garcia Zuluaga Ameen Mirdamadi Michael Wise Lynn Bryson Jonathan Costa Rick Ervin Keenan Grady Andrew Knutzen Ivan Koval John Meyer Shawn Northrop Donald Wray Vladimir Yanishak Dominic Clark Preston Drnek Andrew Fuller Theodore Hurley Matthew Woodworth Chris Chaney Israel Ernani Beneti Raziel Alon Charles Barry Caleb Bourg Timothy Duong Rick Farrington Blake Thomas Hanson Robert Kalbs Chris Kopack Jason Lauritzen Markus Luedin Aaron McDonald A. Keith Miles Crespin Romero Clemens Rumpf Martin Unsal Tyler Wescott Ryan Carney Amber Carney Ian Cherteiny Ryan Courreges David Dillahunty Charles (Chuck) E. Gordon Jason Hernandez Kevin Hunt Erik Knutson Morgan Langham Mathias Lundblad

STATE RATING OFFICIAL

CO UT AZ AZ UT CO AZ CO WY MT MT WY MT ID WY GU MO OK SD IL ME CT DC WV OR OR OR OR WA WA WA OR AK WA GA TN FL GA NC TX NY CA CA CA CA CA CA NV CA CA CA CA CA CA CA CA CA HI CA HI CA CA HI CA CA CA HI HI

Douglas Brown Nathan Alex Taylor Andrew Rayhill Andrew Rayhill Patrick Johnson Matt Henzi Aaron Cromer Dale Covington Chris W. Santacroce Rob Sporrer Rob Sporrer Chris W. Santacroce Casey Bedell E. Scott Edwards Nathan Alex Taylor Douglas Brown Marc Noel Radloff Jonathan Jefferies Jonathan Jefferies Jaro Krupa Rob Sporrer Marcus V. Santos Douglas Brown George R. Huffman Kevin R. Lee Marc Chirico Kevin R. Lee Stephen J. Mayer Steven R. Wilson Marc Chirico Steven R. Wilson Kevin R. Lee Ken W. Hudonjorgensen Marc Chirico Jonathan Jefferies Jerome Daoust Jaro Krupa Johannes Rath Jaro Krupa Hadley Robinson Marcus V. Santos Jesse L. Meyer Jesse L. Meyer Juan A. Laos Jesse L. Meyer Jeffrey J. Greenbaum Jason Shapiro Fred Morris Rob Sporrer Wallace K. Anderson Jason Shapiro Jesse L. Meyer Juan A. Laos Jeffrey J. Greenbaum Jesse L. Meyer Jesse L. Meyer Juan A. Laos David (Dexter) Binder Robin J. Marien Pete Michelmore Jerome Daoust Gabriel Jebb David (Dexter) Binder Gabriel Jebb Gabriel Jebb Max Leonard Marien Scott Gee Robin J. Marien

RTG RGN NAME

P3 P3 P3 P3 P3 P3 P3 P3 P3 P3 P3 P3 P3 P3 P3 P3 P3 P3 P3 P3 P3 P3 P3 P3 P3 P3 P3 P3 P3 P3 P3 P3 P4 P4 P4 P4 P4 P4 P4 P4 P4 P4 P4 P4 P4 P4 P4 P4 P4 P4 P4 P4 P4 P4 P4 P4 P4 P4 P4 P4 P4 P4 P4 P5 P5 P5 P5 P5 P5

3 3 3 3 3 3 3 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 7 8 9 9 9 1 1 1 1 1 1 10 10 10 10 10 10 2 2 3 3 3 3 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 5 7 8 8 8 9 4 4 4 8 4 8

Isaac Moerlein Shay Munroe Lam Nguyen Bikash Pandey John Paul Russell Jr Steve Skinner Ray Vance Brix Casserly Levi Chandler Josh Charles Elizabeth Dengler Weaver Froelicher Erik Henrickson Whitney Martenson David Morrey Justin John Newman Alexandria Schmidt Dan Shorb Dan Sudweeks JT Wardle Tony Bartoletti Jeremie Blais Tyson Hildebrandt Brandon Hopkins Robert Maguire Eric Malzer Keith Warren Michael Stolz Andrew Calise Lisa Davis Josh Mazza Jason Hull Jonathan Costa Galen Kirkpatrick Scott L. Leonard Yun Lin Aaron Napoleon Paul V. Trice Gantulga Amarjargal Matthew Jason Brownstein Dominic Clark Steven (Taylor) Couch Denis Soverini Jason Wallace Martin Canabal Bowen Dwelle Christian Haensel Barcellos Shawn K. Chun Sr Alex Gray Sarah Lockwood Misha Banks Derek Evilsizor Weaver Froelicher Justin Hawkins John A. Heinle Eric Klammer Aaron Reimer Keith MacCullough Edward Farrell Marcos Andre Bernardo Vilela Luciano Fernandes Steven Marangi Felix Figueroa David H. Dixon Blake Pelton Charles (Chuck) Woods Joachim P. Roesler Hadley Robinson Joachim Roesler

STATE RATING OFFICIAL

CA CA CA CA HI CA CA UT CO UT CO CO UT CO UT CO AZ NM UT UT MT AB AB AB AB AB NL ND ME DC DC PA OR WA WA WA WA WA FL FL GA TN NC TN CA CA HI HI CA CA CO CO CO NM CO CO CO AB IL MA MA MA DC UT UT NM CT NM CT

Gabriel Jebb Rob Sporrer Gabriel Jebb Rob Sporrer Pete Michelmore Gabriel Jebb Gabriel Jebb Chris W. Santacroce Johannes Rath Justin Boer Chris W. Santacroce Peter Thompson Jonathan Jefferies Chris W. Santacroce Jonathan Jefferies Rick Jacob Aaron Cromer Charles (Chuck) Woods Jonathan Jefferies Jonathan Jefferies Mark Garnett Damm Mark Garnett Damm Mark Garnett Damm Mark Garnett Damm Mark Garnett Damm Mark Garnett Damm David W. Prentice David John Hebert Calef Letorney Matthew Ingram Matthew Ingram Thomas McCormick Marc Chirico Rob Sporrer Marc Chirico Marc Chirico Owen Shoemaker Marc Chirico David W. Prentice Rob Sporrer Jonathan Jefferies Marc Noel Radloff Jaro Krupa Calef Letorney Kim Galvin Jeffrey J. Greenbaum Paul C. Schaller-Franco Pete Michelmore Jon Charles Malmberg Rob Sporrer Mitchell Riley Stephen J. Mayer Peter Thompson Chris W. Santacroce Rob Sporrer Chris W. Santacroce Patrick Johnson Mark Garnett Damm Chris W. Santacroce Davidson Da-Silva Davidson Da-Silva Chris W. Santacroce Peter J. Van-Oevelen Neil R. Hansen Neil R. Hansen Neil R. Hansen Michael R. Holmes Tiki Mashy Michael Holmes

PHOTO BY AUDREY LUCK

2019 CALENDAR Submit listings online at https://www.

ushpa.org/page/calendar. A minimum 3-MONTH LEAD TIME is required on all submissions. Tentative events will not be published.

CANCELLED > EAST COAST HANG GLIDING CHAMPIONSHIP at Ridgley, Maryland. USHPA Sanctioned HG Race To Goal – AT. This event has been cancelled by the organizer. Organizer: Dan Lukaszewicz | Lucky_Chevy@yahoo.com Website: none JUL 6-13 > US OPEN OF PARAGLIDING CHELAN at Chelan Butte, Chelan, Washington. USHPA Sanctioned PG Race To Goal. Register Dates: Mar 1 - Jul 6, 2019 Organizer: Matty Senior | mattysenior@yahoo.com Website: http://300peaks.com/ JUL 12-14 > INKLER'S POINT FLY-IN at Chewelah, Washington USA. Come join us for 3+ days of good ridge soaring and thermal flying at Inkler's Point! Camping available right adjacent to the LZ. One or two new sites in the area will also be available to fly covering most wind directions. A pilot or two will be on hand before and after the dates of the event to show off other sites in the area - all within 10 road miles of downtown Chewelah. This is a USHPA Insured site. USHPA membership is required. More Info: www.centeroflift.org JUL 24-28 > CORN ALPS XC 2019 Cullom Illinois. This is friendly comp with prizes. XC flying at its best. Winch towing, must have tow bridle (or for sale at comp). GPS tracking device is preferable, WhatsApp for sending location. More Info: Facebook: Corn Alps XC 2019 Email: chicagoparagliding@gmail. com JUL 27 - AUG 03 > TATER HILL OPEN Tater Hill Flight Park, Boone NC. Come join us for the 14th THO. Race to goal with a sport and open class. Prize money, t-shirt, dinner, retrieval, and rides to top included. Check out web-site Flytaterhill.com More Info: Bubba Goodman 828-773-9433 www.flytaterhill. com

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AUG 10-17 > BIG SPRING NATIONALS (Pre-Pan-Americans) at McMahon Wrinkle Airport, Big Spring, Texas. USHPA Sanctioned HG Race To Goal – AT. The 17th Big Spring National Series, site of the 2007 World Hang Gliding Championship, the finest cross country hang gliding competition site in the US. Big Tasks (world records), smooth thermals, unrestricted landing areas, easy retrieval on multiple roads, consistent cumulus development at 1 PM, air conditioned head quarters, hanger for setup, free water and ice cream, welcome dinner, live tracking, many drivers available, strong safety record, highest pilot satisfaction rating. Easy airport access to Midland-Odessa airport, inexpensive accommodations, plentiful infrastructure (restaurants), great community support, superb meet director.

Register Dates: Nov 1, 2018 - Aug 10, 2019 Organizer: Belinda Boulder | belinda@davisstraub.com Website: https://airtribune. com/2019-big-spring-nationals/info/details__info SEP 15-21 > SANTA CRUZ FLATS RACE / MARK KNIGHT MEMORIAL at Francisco Grande Golf Resort, Casa Grande, AZ. USHPA Sanctioned HG Race To Goal – AT. We’re back at the Francisco Grande Resort in Casa Grande, Arizona for the 12th annual Santa Cruz Flats Race. Come on out and join us for some unique technical flying and loads of fun in the desert.

Register Dates: December 15, 2018 - August 15, 2019 Organizer: Jamie Shelden | naughtylawyer@gmail.com Website: http://www.airtribune.com/santa-cruz-flats-race-markknight-memorial-2019 SEP 23-28 > RED ROCKS FALL FLY-IN in Richfield Utah. more specifically Quality Center 540 South Main. When *September 23-28 2019 Why * Because flying Paragliders and Hang gliders is awesome. Who * Paragliders and hang gliders from all over the world. We are expecting over200 Pilots this year. How much * 60 Dollars for the whole week. Plus 10 dollars per ride up the mountain to give to the driver. More Info: www.cuasa. com, Stacy Whitmore 435-979-0225 stacy@cuasa.com Jef Anderson 435-896-7999 jef@cuasa.com

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CLASSIFIED RATES Rates start at $10.00 for 200 characters. Minimum ad charge is $10.00. ALL CLASSIFIEDS ARE PREPAID. No refunds will be given on ads cancelled that are scheduled to run multiple months. For more info, visit www. ushpa.org/page/magazine-classified-advertising CLINICS & TOURS BAJA MEXICO > La Salina Baja’s BEST BEACHFRONT Airsport Venue: PG, HG, PPG: FlyLaSalina.com. by BajaBrent.com, He’ll hook you up! Site intros, tours, & rooms. bajabrent@bajabrent.com, 760203-2658 PARACRANE Paragliding Tours > Nick Crane, USHPA Advanced Instructor, Veteran Guide | Costa Rica 2/11-2/21 | Brazil 3/4-14 | Europe 6/2-16, 9/9-19 and 9/2110/1 | www.costaricaparagliding.com | nick@paracrane.com FLYMEXICO > Valle de Bravo for Winter and year round flying tours and support.

Hang Gliding, Paragliding. Guiding, gear, instruction, transportation, lodging. www. flymexico.com +1 512-467-2529 PARTS & ACCESSORIES GUNNISON GLIDERS > X-C to heavy waterproof HG gliderbags. Accessories, parts, service, sewing. Instruction ratings, site-info. Rusty Whitley 1549 CR 17, Gunnison CO 81230. 970-641-9315.

SCHOOLS & INSTRUCTORS HAWAII > PROFLYGHT PARAGLIDING > Call Dexter for friendly information about flying on Maui. Full service school offering beginner to advanced instruction, year round. 808-874-5433 paraglidemaui.com NEW HAMPSHIRE > MORNINGSIDE > A Kitty Hawk Kites flight park. The Northeast’s premier hang gliding and paragliding training center, teaching since 1974. Hang gliding foot launch and tandem aerowtow training. Paragliding foot launch and tandem training. Powered Paragliding instruction. Dealer for all major manufacturers. Located in Charlestown, NH. Also visit our North Carolina location, Kitty Hawk Kites Flight School. 603-542-4416, www.flymorningside.com

NEW YORK > SUSQUEHANNA FLIGHT PARK > 40 acre flight park; 160’ main training hill; Bunny hills in all directions; Best facility in NY; New Alphas & Falcons in stock; Trade in Trade up; www.cooperstownhanggliding.com NEW YORK > MOUNTAIN WINGS > Since 1980. Only flight school left in tri-state.

PASA certified advanced instruction.

Moyes and North Wing. mtnwings.com mtnwings@verizon.net Ellenville 845-6473377 NORTH CAROLINA > KITTY HAWK KITES > The largest hang gliding school in the world, teaching since 1974. Learn to hang glide and paraglide on the East Coast’s largest sand dune. Year-round instruction, foot launch and tandem aerotow. 1902 Wright Glider Experience available. Dealer for all major manufacturers. Learn to fly where the Wright Brothers flew, located at the beach on NC’s historic Outer Banks.

Also visit our NH location, Morningside Flight Park. (252) 441-2426, 1-877-FLYTHIS, kittyhawk.com/hang-gliding TEXAS > FLYTEXAS TEAM > training pilots in Central Texas for 25 years. Hang Gliding, Paragliding, Trikes. Hangar facilities Lake LBJ, Luling, Smithville www.flytexas.com 512-467-2529 VIRGINIA > BLUE SKY > located near Richmond , year round instruction, all forms of towing, repairs, sewing , tuning... Wills Wing, Moyes, Icaro, Aeros PG, Mosquito, Flylight, Woody Valley. www.blueskyhg. com WINGS & HARNESSES EPSILON 5 LARGE is placed right in the middle of the DHV 1-2 category WITH passive safety. Woody Valley Harness WITH BUILT IN AIR BAG emergency chute $1000 - Garrett Morgan 516-768-4204

Fly beyond! with the Oudie

OZONE RUSH 4 MID SIZE, SupAir XAlps Harness and round reserve. Very lightly used $2,800 OBO. twoflyers@outlook.com

• Touchscreen • Color moving map • Highly customizable • Thermal assistant Flytec.com • 800.662.2449

Final Glide [ contributed by CALEF LETORNEY ]

Thinking Like an Owner

Before learning to fly in 2005, CALEF LETORNEY was a professional freestyle whitewater kayaker who won medals at National and World Championships. Since then he received an honors degree in Economics and a Master of Business Administration.

Founder of Paraglide New England (www.PGNE.aero), his paragliding credentials include a P5 Master rating, Advanced Instructor and Tandem Instructor certifications, and he is a newly appointed Instructor Administrator. But, he’ll be the first to tell you he does not fly nearly enough and the longer he flies, the more he realizes how much he has yet to learn.

Formerly a USHPA BOD member, Calef currently sits on the RRRG Board of Directors.

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Business owners consider the big picture and caught. Such is the nature of the low-probawork to create organization-wide success in bility, high-consequence risks we face, so try a way that few employees do, when left to to imagine that 1-in-1000 flight scenario and their own devices. The differences between maintain extra safety margins owner and employee behavior can be observed 2. Constantly Promote: Every one of us in many small actions, such as working to participates in the marketing of our sports. reduce cost and waste, avoiding risk, creating All the time. With each interaction we are efficiencies, planning for long-term success, given an opportunity to plant the seed of a and fostering partnerships. Fortunately, with future pilot or tarnish our reputation. Taking training and incentives, employees can be just five minutes to talk to a spectator could encouraged to engage in these same positive create a future pilot. Make the most of every behaviors. This situation is quite analogous to opportunity to spread the love!

USHPA, where members are part-owners, and, 3. Protect the brand: Thanks to FAR Part with minimal effort, can all contribute to a 103, we are largely unregulated and on the brighter future. honor system. This freedom is liberating, but can also lead to complacency. It is your So how can we think and act like owners? responsibility to know the rules and follow 1. Identify and reduce risk: Nothing shuts them. Harassing wildlife, swooping at tourists, down flying faster than accidents. Indeed, risking property damage, flying in clouds, and Colombia and Nepal both recently imposed flying over congested areas are all prohibited temporary moratoriums on paragliding to and endanger the future of our sports. Take investigate serious accidents. Tackling this that prohibited behavior and broadcast it on issue head on—Risk Mitigation—is USHthe internet for millions to see, and you’ve PA’s not-at-all-secret weapon in the fight to got a much bigger PR problem. Regulators improve safety. As a condition for obtaining and land managers watch YouTube, too. insurance, all clubs and commercial operaPerception is what counts, so even if footage tions must evaluate their risk factors and document them. Having done this for my own of flying adjacent to a cloud is legal (only in Class G airspace, within 1200’ AGL, clear of PG school, I can confirm the initial process clouds), posting it online smacks of lawlessis time consuming and challenging, but well worth the initial effort and easy to keep curness and inspires copycats. So think before rent. Years later, my risk mitigation plans still you act, and then think again before you post anything online. pay dividends. Risk mitigating strategies are 4. Speak up: Whether you’re a master or most effective when created and implementa rookie, if you see “areas for improvement” ed as a group, so get everybody involved and don’t keep that insight to yourself. We can’t afshare the results.

Big-picture plans are all well and good, but ford to stand by while others learn “the hard the rubber meets the road in our own person- way.” If you encounter a new or visiting pilot, offer to be a site guide, or introduce them to a al actions. If you keep your eyes open, you will find risks that can be easily remedied. For local expert. When you see risky behavior, call example, remove a snow gun sticking out into it out in a respectful and considerate way, and help the risky pilot to understand what they a ski slope launch, or kindly ask spectators need to change. to watch from a safer distance. Some risks 5. Treat the child as your own: When a comare unavoidable, so we must accept the risk factor and plan accordingly. Never forget pany owns its suppliers, it can enjoy greater when you are “robbing the bank.” The same reliability, customized products, lower costs, way we become accustomed to noises and and greater profits. This concept is called unconsciously tune them out, we become “vertical integration.” USHPA was pushed into desensitized to risks we’ve taken repeatedthis situation when, after years of poor behavly. By unwittingly stacking risk factors, we ior, our insurance rates went up, and up, and dramatically increase the chance of getting up, until finally the provider decided there

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was no price at which they would cover our risk. Our policy was not renewed, and that insurer was the only company that would write our coverage. We rallied and started our own insurance company, the Recreation Risk Retention Group (RRRG). With majority ownership, USHPA is the parent and the RRRG is the child company. By taking control of the organization’s largest expense, USHPA continues its mission of ensuring the future of free flight. In the long run, a healthy RRRG will be able to offer more flexible policies at better rates, but we need to survive long enough to realize these goals.

Owning our own insurance company does not mean we get to do whatever we want. Like auto insurance, every claim affects our future rates, which must be approved by regulators, and are based on accident and claim history. So when a pilot crashes into something and does property damage, we should not think “no big deal, the insurance company will pay for it.” I’m not suggesting we avoid making appropriate claims, but we need to use our heads and work to

󲢫 Owning our own insurance company does not mean we get to do whatever we want. 󲢻 avoid claims. Don’t park your car on launch despite “no parking” signs, then file a claim when it gets smashed by a pilot attempting top landing. That’s your fault for parking in harm’s way. Don’t file claims for more than the damage, hoping to pocket the extra cash.

That’s called fraud. And no matter what happens, abide by our literal and social contract, as spelled out in our waiver: Thou Shalt Not Sue (or encourage lawsuits against) USHPA members or instructors. Period. Sadly, in the first three years of the RRRG all of the above scenarios have happened. Remember that almost any lawsuit in paragliding or hang gliding is ultimately a lawsuit against the RRRG, USHPA, and our future.

Nothing worthwhile is free or easy, and neither is vertical integration. All startup companies risk failure; the RRRG is no exception. We’ve had a difficult start, and it is still quite possible that accidents and claims could cause the RRRG to fail the regulator’s stress

powerful flightbook Lightweight simple Complete

tests. If that happened, the RRRG would be forced to unwind (go out of business in an orderly manner). Regardless of how you feel about RRRG policies or the Risk Mitigation process involved in issuing club and commercial insurance, if the RRRG went out of business, we would lose insurance coverage... again, but this time for good. This would be devastating, as many sites require insurance and few commercial operators are keen to teach without coverage. So we all need to work to keep the RRRG healthy.

6. Accept responsibility: In free flight, the only way to guarantee safety is not to do

identify our own areas for improvement; so try to remain open to criticism and remember that as long as you’re arguing, you’re investing energy in defending your point of view rather than learning.

8. Foster the next generation: There will always be a natural rate of pilot attrition, meaning we will always need new members to replace the outgoing. It’s everyone’s responsibility to welcome new pilots and appreciate their presence as the future of our sport. You don’t have to offer instruction (and if it’s not appropriate, don’t) in order to help the next generation. You can make a difference simply

󲢫 No matter what happens, you are always responsible for your own safety.

If you can’t handle this, quit flying and take up bowling. 󲢻 it. We choose to fly, knowing it could result in death or serious injury. Having made the decision to launch as the Pilot In Command, you alone are responsible for the outcome.

This simple concept is clearly spelled out in our waivers and baked deep into FAR Part 103.

Instructors may give you bad information, like telling you to turn left when they meant right, but at the end of the day, the pilot is always responsible for his/her own actions and safety. There can be no assumption of aircraft airworthiness or that those around you are flying airworthy equipment. There can be no assumption that other pilots in the air have the knowledge or skill to fly safely. Right-ofway is only a guideline and it’s each pilot’s responsibility to “see and avoid” collisions. No matter what happens, you are always responsible for your own safety. If you can’t handle this, quit flying and take up bowling.

7. Onboard information and adapt: We must all work to identify our weaknesses and seek constant improvement. When we close ourselves off to new ideas, we sink out.

This is challenging, as it means being open to criticism. Personally, I’m pretty hardheaded, which is common among USHPA members, since flying takes a great deal of self-confidence. And yet without the ability to receive criticism, no pilot will last long. When we have a skills deficiency, there’s often a dual burden, as the lacking skill is the very same expertise needed to evaluate proficiency at said skills. At times, this dual burden can make it remarkably difficult to objectively 66 US H PA P I LOT

by befriending newcomers. Take a moment to get to know new pilots, invite them to join local clubs and mailing lists, and let them know when it’s flyable. This takes little effort, yet makes a profound difference in retaining new pilots.

Having expounded on a few of my ideas on how to “think and act like an owner,” it’s important to acknowledge that not all owners have the same vision. No doubt I’ve excluded some important topics and introduced others that prove controversial. That’s perfectly all right. What is most important is that we all try to see the broader perspective and appreciate how every one of us impacts the future of our sport. Happy flying!

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The combined expertise of Naviter and Flytec help pilots fly farther, safer, and beyond their expectations.

Flytec.com or 800.662.2449 68 US H PA P I LOT