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User avatar
By LoganR
#404378
"Liberating public land? Your definition of liberating public land and how you are going about doing is a problem according to some reports I've read."

Ok, then learn to play nice and I can stop.
User avatar
By USHPA7
#404379
I don;t know how to quote in this forum so here is a copy of what i will reply to:

"Allowing non-members to purchase insurance is a different story. There is definitely a down side to that. You claim the RRRG is going to go bankrupt. What do you think would happen if any person off the street claiming to be a hang glider pilot buys insurance and then goes out and has an incident? That would be chum in the legal waters for lawyers.
The training and ratings structure of the org gives the members some legitimacy when it comes to dealing with the issues of safety and qualifications. Those are some of the things that lawyers go after when there are injuries and damage".


Requiring membership in order to acquire insurance does nothing to prevent the scenario you wrote. Any person joining USHPA can do exactly what you said. Yes, they will have signed a waiver but please recall that I said the landowner should require that also.

USHPA has kicked out a member with a perfect safety record, who had H4 & P4 ratings, had not violated any civil laws or any established SOP's of the org, and he cannot get insurance now and cannot fly excellent local sites, just because of the membership requirement. And your point was?

DMarley, Do I have to keep repeating that I'm not against insurance and the lawyers it provides to the landowner, I've payed my dues for that insurance every year since the 1970's. I'm against a private club who can decide to kick a member out and then not offer to sell him insurance so that a totally qualified person can keep flying at desired sites.

Read more: viewtopic.php?t=35916&start=180#ixzz5O5Ucbu00
User avatar
By Paul H
#404380
joefaust wrote: Mon Aug 13, 2018 3:30 pm New blood that has PDMC not well faced is being dealt with: ultimately a HG-focused org is curing what cannot be cured in the current mixed org. That the profound negative-for-HG impact PG would make and is making was not well enough appreciated is history; now that the understanding is sharpening, the change is needed. PG is not going to go away soon enough, so the new focus RHG org is needed.
====================================================
Marley's challenge on posting:
http://www.energykitesystems.net/HGorg/ ... ey0001.JPG
The PDMC is the agenda of a rabid anti-PG individual. How can promoting that idea help anyone take you seriously?
What is this profound negative-for-HG impact you claim PG has made? It has greatly increased public awareness and exposure of flying to the public, something that has been lacking from just the HG community for a long time. The PG community has opened up many new flying sites, something that the HG community has fallen behind in. They have also renewed interests in more local flying trips and fun comps. That's also something the HG community is doing less of.
They are doing a lot more flying than HG's. Just in my local area I see them flying at least ten times as many flights on any given day compared to the the HG's and that's a very conservative number. We see a lot more people expressing interest in flying because of their greater visibility and some of that ends up being new HG pilots, not just PG's.
User avatar
By DMarley
#404381
joefaust wrote: Mon Aug 13, 2018 3:30 pm New blood that has PDMC not well faced is being dealt with: ultimately a HG-focused org is curing what cannot be cured in the current mixed org. That the profound negative-for-HG impact PG would make and is making was not well enough appreciated is history; now that the understanding is sharpening, the change is needed. PG is not going to go away soon enough, so the new focus RHG org is needed.
====================================================
Marley's challenge on posting:

Hey Joe, here's the truth: I first signed up with u s hawks more than two years ago I believe. Could have been earlier or later. I don't have the exact date. But it's been quite a while ago. At that time I was very interested to read what Bob had to say.
So, to imply that I had just signed up today to post is merely another fish-tale by Bob. Can't believe much of anything one reads on that site any more, sadly.
After Bob likened the ushpa as a racist club, I felt zero need to make any further comments on his forum, nor call him directly. How does one converse with someone who would stoop to such rhetoric?

We can work within the system, not against it.
Last edited by DMarley on Mon Aug 13, 2018 4:01 pm, edited 1 time in total.
User avatar
By Paul H
#404382
USHPA7 wrote: Mon Aug 13, 2018 3:45 pm I don;t know how to quote in this forum so here is a copy of what i will reply to:

"Allowing non-members to purchase insurance is a different story. There is definitely a down side to that. You claim the RRRG is going to go bankrupt. What do you think would happen if any person off the street claiming to be a hang glider pilot buys insurance and then goes out and has an incident? That would be chum in the legal waters for lawyers.
The training and ratings structure of the org gives the members some legitimacy when it comes to dealing with the issues of safety and qualifications. Those are some of the things that lawyers go after when there are injuries and damage".


Requiring membership in order to acquire insurance does nothing to prevent the scenario you wrote. Any person joining USHPA can do exactly what you said. Yes, they will have signed a waiver but please recall that I said the landowner should require that also.

USHPA has kicked out a member with a perfect safety record, who had H4 & P4 ratings, had not violated any civil laws or any established SOP's of the org, and he cannot get insurance now and cannot fly excellent local sites, just because of the membership requirement. And your point was?

DMarley, Do I have to keep repeating that I'm not against insurance and the lawyers it provides to the landowner, I've payed my dues for that insurance every year since the 1970's. I'm against a private club who can decide to kick a member out and then not offer to sell him insurance so that a totally qualified person can keep flying at desired sites.

Read more: viewtopic.php?t=35916&start=180#ixzz5O5Ucbu00
The same individual who was booted out of his RD position? He's proven himself to not work well with others and refuses to allow for any opinions other than his own in any discussions. He was not an asset to the org and acting out like he often did would have him get booted out of most organizations. He's not special.
User avatar
By USHPA7
#404384
However, not being liked, or not "getting along to go along", in the organization should have nothing to do with his flying site choices. You just made my point against USHPA being a gatekeeper to flying sites - thank you!

PDMC is not an agenda, it is physics & math. Who argues against physics & mathematics?

Paraglider collapse deaths and injuries, due to normal atmospheric turbulence, will stain PG and then HG's reputation will go down with it, because the average public doesn't understand the difference between having an airframe and not having an airframe. Do you? Being able to quickly recover flight through zero or - G and not being able to quickly recover flight through zero or - G of the wing in question.

I had multiple sail inversions on a hang glider within 200 feet of the ground and made a normal standup landing. Can any PG pilot make that statement? I would not be alive now, at age 83, if I had been in a paraglider then.
User avatar
By mgforbes
#404386
I'd rather not wade into this happy little discussion, but I do want to make one thing very clear.

Recreation RRG is not structured in such a way that a single claim, or even several large claims would cause it to go bankrupt.

The RRG has several protections against this. First, we have limits to our policies. There is a set amount beyond which the RRG is not obligated to pay a claim, and that limit includes the cost of defense.

Second, we purchase a reinsurance policy from a large carrier which steps in to cover the bulk of a very large claim. If we were to have a claim that finally resolved in excess of $300,000 (costs plus awarded damages) then the reinsurer would pick up the balance above $300K. That costs us a significant fee every year, but it's a requirement to operate as a licensed insurer in Vermont and the actuaries and regulators review that coverage each year during our audit.

Third, we have substantial reserves in excess of the minimum required for operations. The RRG has been profitable to date, and has accumulated that profit despite holding significant claim reserves in addition to its capital. Those profits currently flow into the capital pool and are invested in low-risk certificates of deposit. Once reserves are built up further and the surplus note holders are paid for their loans, the profits then can be used to help reduce future premium rates.

Fourth, the insurance policies written by Recreation RRG have some exclusions and limitations for the kinds of risks that can lead to very large claims. For example, towing operations, which in the past were a significant portion of our losses, are now carefully underwritten and analyzed before becoming insured. Operators unwilling to comply with the best practices of towing are not approved for coverage. These operations are reviewed on a regular basis, and accident/incident reports from the field are used to help refine the guidance we provide to tow operators.

Claims by Frank and others that they know the RRG is doomed are simply false. I know he's been around since God was a Hang 1, but he's not involved with the RRG, and he doesn't have accurate information about how it operates.

MGF
User avatar
By mgforbes
#404387
One more thing: there is absolutely no possibility that non-member pilots can purchase insurance from the RRG. That's a fundamental fact because of how it is incorporated under federal law. The Liability Risk Retention Act requires that all insureds be owners of the RRG, and every owner must be an insured. It is possible for an individual flight school to purchase a policy from the RRG, but they need to pass underwriting and make a capital investment in the RRG to become an owner. That's what PASA-certified large schools do, once they get large enough to justify the annual base premium (roughly $4000) and the minimum capital investment of $500. Smaller schools join PASA and share a single group policy issued to it, paying dues in proportion to their level of business activity.

MGF
User avatar
By magentabluesky
#404389
DMarley wrote: Mon Aug 13, 2018 9:15 am Mike,
Frank is only telling one part of the story, the same small part that you are, merely to make the point of his and the rest of you who seemingly have a need to disassemble the ushpa, seemingly because you don't like the dues.
. . . .

I just need to go on the record, I have never advocated too disassemble the USHPA. I have been a faithful member for over forty years and remain so. I have never complained about paying dues.

What would give you any other idea?

mbs
User avatar
By DMarley
#404391
Michael, if you are not helping to support mr. loganR's claims and aspirations, then I apologize. Yet the rhetoric that you and he are using is all too familiar.

Joe, please be careful who you are trusting. When someone (Bob) starts referring to an entity (ushpa) and compares it to the kkk, antifa, and refers to it as a racist organization, he is not merely attempting to analogize, as he smoothly claims, he is attempting to maneuver and bait the establishment (all of us) so that we will publicly attack his target (ushpa) as a 'dangerous enemy.' All of what Bob writes are merely fabrications with a thread of truth woven in to make it all seem plausible. Be careful with whom you are aligning yourself with.
User avatar
By LoganR
#404392
Bob was very clear "private organizations can have membership standards and/or goals inconsistent with the public's right to use public land." You are the one that keeps saying "racist". You have already clearly stated that you are ok with kicking people out of their parks based on their political views, this is " inconsistent with the public's right to use public land." Do you even realize that public land is *NOT* your land? Do you have any concept of your obligations of stewardship granted to you when you accept the Special Use Permit? If you did, we would not be having this conversation. I would ask you to have an honest conversation about your position, but in 3 years that hasn't happened; I suspect because you quite simply don't have a leg to stand on.
User avatar
By mgforbes
#404393
Paul H wrote: Mon Aug 13, 2018 3:53 pm Just in my local area I see them flying at least ten times as many flights on any given day compared to the the HG's and that's a very conservative number. We see a lot more people expressing interest in flying because of their greater visibility and some of that ends up being new HG pilots, not just PG's.
Anecdote from my past weekend. I was listening to some relatively new PG pilots at a maneuvers clinic I attended in New York, after I was done with the RRG annual board meeting in Vermont. One commented that he'd looked into hang gliding initially, but the size and weight of the equipment, along with the difficulty of storage and transport, pushed him to take up paragliding instead. It's easier to learn, easier to lug around and store, and it's fun.

Hang glider pilots hung up on "performance" need to realize that it's not what most people care about. They care about flying, and their choice of aircraft is driven by convenience and cost. If we're going to attract pilots to hang gliding, we need to give them a compelling reason to adopt that mode of flight. The fatality and injury statistics do not support a conclusion that paragliding is inherently more dangerous than hang gliding. I'm working on the accident summary compilation that the RRG will be releasing shortly, and the evidence just doesn't support that conclusion. As Paul says above, he's seeing a much larger volume of PG flying. Same thing here in Oregon. The PG club is very active; the HG group, now only a mailing list with no regular in-person meetings, is maybe a tenth of the activity, if that. And that mostly because we have one guy who seems to be able to go out flying almost every day!

The best way to get new HG pilots is to get them interested in the capability of a hang glider once they're flying. To do that we need to knock off the "PDMC" bullshit and focus on fun and community. We need to be open, receptive and welcoming to all pilots, and not act like a bunch of grumpy old farts. Which, I regret to say, is what a lot of this looks like.

I had a great tow, practiced riser twists, full and asymmetric deflations and did some steep spirals with the G's building up dramatically. WAY too much fun! Even with a full frontal, the whole wing blown back behind me, it banged right back open as soon as I released the risers, and it was easy to catch the surge with the brakes as it recovered. Minimal loss of altitude, maximal gain of fun. It was a great day on Lake Champlain, and I'm glad I was able to join in.

MGF
User avatar
By USHPA7
#404394
Here is my reply to this posting by Mark Forbes:

One more thing: there is absolutely no possibility that non-member pilots can purchase insurance from the RRG. That's a fundamental fact because of how it is incorporated under federal law. The Liability Risk Retention Act requires that all insureds be owners of the RRG, and every owner must be an insured. It is possible for an individual flight school to purchase a policy from the RRG, but they need to pass underwriting and make a capital investment in the RRG to become an owner. That's what PASA-certified large schools do, once they get large enough to justify the annual base premium (roughly $4000) and the minimum capital investment of $500. Smaller schools join PASA and share a single group policy issued to it, paying dues in proportion to their level of business activity.

MGF


Mark this ownership issue is not a problem. Let me refresh your memory.

Back when you were in charge of establishing the RRG I made a proposal to you. I would donate $25,000 to the RRG if you established an insurance only membership category. Those members could be restricted in any way USHPA wanted as far as what, if any, member privileges they held. Some obvious ones would be; not eligible to run for or hold office in the org, cannot represent themselves as speaking for the org in any way, etc., etc. That satisfies the member ownership requirement without have to put up with active members you don't like. I even suggested that USHPA could charge the same dues as the full members pay.

My offer of $25,000 to be donated into the formation of the RRG was turned down by you in lieu of creating an insurance only membership category so people deemed not worthy of belonging to the USHPA regular membership could still buy insurance and fly the sites of their choice.

Speaking of dues; DMarley inferred that I was complaining about dues? Where on earth did you get that dumb idea? I was paying my dues and adding $500 to them for site preservation every year for some years. I've been paying the dues since the organization was started in the 1970's. How on earth could you justify twisting what we are saying so much? If I can offer $25,000 donation to the formation of the RRG, do you think have a hidden agenda to complain about stinkin' little dues? Give me a F****in break! :lol:

Read more: viewtopic.php?t=35916&start=200#ixzz5O71hqKnA
User avatar
By magentabluesky
#404396
DMarley wrote: Mon Aug 13, 2018 9:09 pmBe careful with whom you are aligning yourself with.
. . . .
I am not aligning myself with anyone. I follow where the truth and law take me.

Circling back to the subject at hand with a realistic analogy:

Let say the GGNRA (NPS) declares they will only allow motor vehicles into the park who are insured with AAA. Great, DMarley and I are insured with AAA and we get to drive our cars into the GGNRA. Fantastic because there are 80 percent fewer cars in the park and we get the park to ourselves. After all the NPS is in charge of the GGNRA and the NPS makes the rules. Three months later the NPS informs all the AAA insured drivers they are now changing their policy and are only allowing Geico insured cars into the GGNRA. DMarley and I are out luck. Since Mike Jefferson and Logan are insured with Geico they now have exclusive use of the park with their vehicles. Oh well, the NPS makes the rules.

Does anyone really believe that insurance policy would stand a legal challenge in a court of law?

Now just substitute hang gliders with vehicles and the insurance companies.

So Mike Jefferson and Logan get together and form the Big Feather Fliers Hang Gliding Club and have their own insurance company. They petition the NPS for the exclusive permit to fly hang gliders at Fort Funston and are awarded the exclusive permit because their Feather is bigger than the Fellow Feathers. For all the members of USHPA, that’s just tough luck, after all the NPS is in charge.

Now how do those shoes fit?
Do unto other as you would have them do unto you. – The Golden Rule
. . . .

The alignment:

Namaste
I honor the place in you in which the entire universe dwells.
I honor the place in you which is of Love, of Truth, of Light, and of Peace.
When you are in that place in you and I am in that place in me
We are one.
User avatar
By LoganR
#404397
See, someone gets it! Though I don't think USHPA leadership understands just how many paths I have towards removing their exclusive use.

There is an IG complaint in with the Department of Transportation as well as Department of the Interior. Federal, NPS, and DOT law all state that you cannot have exclusive access. I may have to hire my own lawyer but the law is not on the side of USHPA or Fellow Feathers.

Considering Fellow Feathers gets Ft. Funston for $3k/year right now and have had that rate for about 10 years, have had exclusive control for....? 30? I think it's fair to say that the park would have to accept just about *ANY* other request to use that piece of land by now. I can afford $3k/year to grow dust bunnies at the Ft. Funston clubhouse. Side note, charging rent on National Park Property (glider storage) and advertising that you are impounding property for unpaid rent..... not a smooth move. Getting caught selling tandem glider flights doesn't help. Requiring fees paid to the parent organization *USHPA* while the chapter club enforces collection...... all these things are commercial activities which require a concession permit. You got away with this when people thought you were working in the interest of the park.

I'm not sure how much any of the NPS agents actually care about flying, my bet would be almost none. It is in their best interest to either comply with the laws and allow equal use to public resources, or shut it down all together. In Utah it took 5 emails and a phone call to liberate Point of the Mountain. While it is my intention to fly my parks as an independent pilot; you have to realize that right now I do not have access, so any movement is progress.

*BUT YOU COULD RUIN THIS FOR EVERYBODY!!!!!!!* False, *EVERYBODY* (USHPA) has decided that they are going to accept responsibility of ensuring that public lands are being used for the public good yet use the land exclusively for their own gain.

What USHPA does on private land is none of my business, trying to keep me off my public land just isn't acceptable. Learn to play nice, recognize that you are just *ONE* flying club, and a private club with *ZERO* legal status other than the contract you have. If you recognize that you have very little standing in keeping these contracts, and start acting like an advocacy group instead of a gang defending their territory..... we may all learn to get along.
User avatar
By Paul H
#404399
USHPA7 wrote: Mon Aug 13, 2018 4:17 pm However, not being liked, or not "getting along to go along", in the organization should have nothing to do with his flying site choices. You just made my point against USHPA being a gatekeeper to flying sites - thank you!

PDMC is not an agenda, it is physics & math. Who argues against physics & mathematics?

Paraglider collapse deaths and injuries, due to normal atmospheric turbulence, will stain PG and then HG's reputation will go down with it, because the average public doesn't understand the difference between having an airframe and not having an airframe. Do you? Being able to quickly recover flight through zero or - G and not being able to quickly recover flight through zero or - G of the wing in question.

I had multiple sail inversions on a hang glider within 200 feet of the ground and made a normal standup landing. Can any PG pilot make that statement? I would not be alive now, at age 83, if I had been in a paraglider then.

Physics and math? Ok, how about this? Rick Masters’s anti-PG tirade and his PDMC is based on his extremely biased interpretation of incomplete data or more simply put, Confirmation Bias. Is that sciencey enough?
You claim that Paragliding will stain HG’s reputation? Hang gliding already has a poor reputation thanks to the hang gliding community back in the seventies. Don’t blame it on paragliding. Public perception about hang gliding was already formed long ago.
I don’t know why Masters carries on like he does. Maybe a PG pilot ran off with his old lady or ran over his cat. I don’t know and I don’t care. I do care when someone who claims to be a hang glider pilot goes out of his way to be so continuously offensive to another part of the flying community. That is the kind of thing that stains the reputation of hang gliding.
No one ever has or ever will force anyone to fly a PG. I will never fly one, but that’s my choice just like it is a choice for everyone else.
If Masters really cared about saving people he would be spending his time and energy on things like anti-smoking and anti-drunk driving campaigns. Those two things are real killers.
By the way, sail inversions aren’t a problem for modern hang gliders, but there were pilots who did have them happen back in the day and didn’t survive them. Too many of the old hang gliders were crappy wings and nobody should miss them. Even now hang glider pilots are still finding ways to kill and injure themselves even though the wings available now are so much easier and safer to fly. Our incident and accident numbers aren’t as high as the PG’s simply because there aren’t as many of us and we don’t fly as much.
User avatar
By mtpilot
#404402
We don't know for sure what is driving insurance costs since Mark-USHPA has a zero disclosure policy. I am not satisfied
with dumb down generic it's all OK explanation.
User avatar
By mgforbes
#404404
1. It's expensive to run an insurance company. There are a lot of fixed costs, particularly in the early phase. We've only completed two years of operation, one of those a partial. We're still a startup, and that means we're not going to see significant cost reductions for a few more years. I can see them on the horizon, provided things continue to go well, but you need to be thinking in terms of a ten-year outlook.

2. We've had only two minor claims to date, for which money was actually paid out in expenses and damages. Both were property damage, to power lines and cars. Despite that, we're carrying nearly half a million on the books in claim reserves, for incidents (known and unknown) where there is some potential for a future claim. Eventually the earliest claims will "age out" and drop off the back of the reserves, but that doesn't happen for some years yet. Expect the reserves to continue to build as we accrue new incidents and reserve for them, and they'll eventually level off when the old stuff falling off the back catches up to the new stuff added on the front. That's when we start to see improved bottom-line profits, which can then be used to reduce premiums. Meanwhile, the reserves are invested and earning interest.

3. I'm working on a summary of incidents and accidents reported since the RRG started operation. I hope to get that released in a week or two, once I get some time to finish it up. I've been gone from work for a week, and I have a bunch of my "real job" stuff I need to catch up on.

MGF
User avatar
By USHPA7
#404406
This thread is going off topic. There are people who claim the earth is flat, and people who claim the moon landings were fake, and people who claim the sun orbits the earth, and people who claim the PDMC is false. We cannot change these people's minds because they are basing their claims on belief instead of physical, scientific, and mathematical proof. So, lets not waste any more of this thread on trying to convince these true believers.

The subject of this thread is the gatekeeping function of the USHPA and how to solve the problem of pilots falling into disfavor of the officers of the org, being expelled, and because of the insurance situation being barred from flying the sites of their choice. As a private organization USHPA has the right to be a gatekeeper of its membership roles but it doesn't have a right to keep good pilots from their favorite flying sites through the insurance "catch 22".

These pilots should be able to get insurance as long as they have a good safety record. I offered the solution along with $25,000: Create an insurance only membership at the same price as a full membership. Most pilots would see as a no brainer the choice to go with the full membership. Only the pilots not allowed to be full members would join as insurance only members so even if they had to be given voting privileges in order to qualify as member/ owners of the RRG their vote would be a drop in the bucket because of their small numbers.

There are pilots who can join USHPA but will not because they don't approve of how it is being run or because they don't like being included with PG. These conscientious objectors could then join the insurance only membership, feel good about themselves again, :thumbsup: and the club gets even more money for the RRG. We call this: Win, Win, where I come from. 8)

This is the perfect solution and I challenge the officers of USHPA to set aside their vindictive hatred of the good person / good pilot / safe pilot (we all know who I'm referring to) and implement this change to provide an insurance only membership position with whatever restrictions they wish to make on that position.

Remember: all who prefer the status quo - there but for the grace of USHPA go you.

Frank C
User avatar
By BubbleBoy
#404407
Mark: // "The fatality and injury statistics do not support a conclusion that paragliding is inherently more dangerous than hang gliding. " //

I haven't studied it in the last few years, but unless something has changed this is a true statement.

XXXXs on a page (Faust) or ranting (Masters) won't change the fundamental facts of data. I have yet to see data that shows PGs suffer from injuries and death at any significant rate greater than HG.

I'll await more recent data and happily update my current position based upon that data.
JB
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