Flyfunston

After many months of negations with the park department, I’ve finally gotten clearance to bring paragliding to Fort Funston!

This was not an easy task and required the park department trusting me and not the FF Executive Committee. Fortunately, since I’m not officially a FF officer, I didn’t need to check with the Board, so you can’t give them any credit for my accomplishments.

Since the Fellow Feathers is a hang gliding only club, I had to start our own paragliding club for the Fort. I’m still trying to decide on what name to call it. The “Fellow Feathers of Fort Funston Paragliding Club” sounds too much like the hang gliding club so I think we will go with the “Funston Para Hawks”.

There will need to be a few rules if we are to share the ridge with the hang gliders: First, no more than three paragliders will be able to kite on launch at any one time, and more than 6 paragliders will be allowed to kite in the landing zone at any one time. No more than 10 paragliders will be allowed to fly on the main ridge at any one time, and are of course encouraged to give hang gliders a wide berth so they can land on the beach.

Since I used the Dumps as a model, we won’t need waivers or insurance. No USHPA for the Funston Para Hawks! The Dumps does not require ratings so no ratings will be required to fly paragliders at Funston either. This is great because as a P-1 I will be able to get lots of airtime!

I’m also making arrangements to get us space in the clubhouse. I anticipate getting permission to take down at least half of the hang glider racks to make room to hang our canopies and do repacking. Since the Fellow Feathers are paying the rent and don’t allow paragliders to join, the Funston Para Hawks will be able to use the building for free!

Since I am the most experienced person for the job, I have appointed myself the Fort Funston Director of Paragliding. No paragliders may fly at Fort Funston until they have checked in with me and joined the Funston Para Hawks. Membership will be $1,000.00 per year, which sounds like a lot of money but is a small price to pay for flying Fort Funston! Please contact me off line to make arrangements.

I’m really looking forward to floating around and parking for hours on the ridge, hope to see you all at the Fort!

Excellent work, Steve! I'm just waiting for the naysayers to jump in. Always something to complain about...

Speaking of parachutes, in case anyone didn't hear, I collided with a small plane the other day in the shear at 6,000' and had to toss my chute. The wind carried me all the way to the Montara hills, and long story short, I got out okay but what's left of my glider is still there. I thought the plane pilot saw me before we hit, but he was flying partially into the cloud, so it wasn't really my fault. I wrote the FAA about it and I'm pretty sure they'll come to the same conclusion. I also was proactive in posting about it on a couple of GA pilot forums to make it clear that it wasn't mostly my fault.

Anyway I took my HPAT out the next day and did some practice landings in the dog park north of the parking lot in case they shut down Funston, because the dog park LZ is like a whole different site and it's about time we pioneered it. Every site starts with bandito flying, so let's not pretend I'm different than anyone else.

This never happens, all 3 voices in my head are making that throwup sound... weird...

Thanks Steve, I tried many times to contact you yesterday but couldn't reach you so I took the opportunity to fly my paraglider at the fort. It was awesome! I had the entire launch to myself and later found an even better launch which will help us avoid future issues with the HG pilots. I got into the shear & flew 3000 feet over launch, flew to the dumps, did touch & go's, flew back and did touch & go's at Fort Funston...right in the launch area. All in all I got in 6 hours of flying time & almost 100 touch & go's at fort funston on my paraglider. The best part of it was that I flew north of the pipe to Ocean Beach & continued soaring via the seawall all the way to the cliff house. On the way back I swooped the pipe dragging my foot across the top of the waves (I can't wait to post the video). Being that it was strong lift I had no problem climbing back up to the launch area to continue doing touch & go's.

I got a bit cocky and decided to land in the spectator viewing area. We should petition the park to close it to spectators because it's an awesome launch/landing area for paraglider pilots and we will never be in the way of hang gliders on launch although we should move the windsock (I propose we move it to the center of the HG launch area so it's more visible). Being that I had no problem & the spectators loved this I decided to run to my car & get my tandem paraglider. Since you negotiated no rules I went ahead & took the liberty to charge a couple of spectators for a tandem and we launched right from the spectator viewing platform. A couple more tandem flights and my $1000 club dues will pay for itself.

Being proactive, I decided to go ahead & make room in the clubhouse. I took out a couple of hang gliders & stacked them nicely along the outside of the building (on the east side so they are less noticeable & less likely to be stolen). Don't worry if this was one of yours, I covered them with plastic so they can't get rained on or pissed on by dogs. There's now room for about 50 paraglider wings in the clubhouse along the west side (this makes it easier for us so we don't have to walk all the way to the other side of the clubhouse to store our wings). What a glorious day, I can't wait to fly my paraglider at the fort again the same time next year. We appreciate all the hard work you put into this.

Steve Rodrigues wrote:I think we will go with the “Funston Para Hawks”.

Hi Steve,

If you're taking a swipe at the Torrey Hawks, I'm afraid you've got a flawed analogy. Hang gliding was first at Torrey ... and at Funston. A mostly paragliding concession came along and took over at Torrey. That hasn't happened at Funston. The PG visibility at Torrey and their ability to crank out new paragling pilots in large numbers has changed the "wing demographics" in San Diego. Check the roster of the SDHGPA to see the ratio of PG to HG pilots in that club. In fact, the SDHGPA club leaders had abandoned Torrey because they didn't want to step on the commercial toes of their buddy David Jebb. When I asked the SDHGPA to rejoin the Torrey Pines Soaring Council to stand up for pilots, they initially refused. They said their club had no business interfering at Torrey. At least that's what they said until I suggested that we might form a new HG club ... that's when they got real interested in the Council and have fought to keep us off. Both the SDHGPA (and USHPA via Brad Hall) appointed only PG pilots to the 7 member Council for 6 months after it was reformed. In fact they didn't appoint any HG pilots until AFTER the Torrey Hawks applied to the Council in September of 2007.

There's a lot more, but this isn't the Torrey Forum. I'm just pointing out that you can't make an easy comparison between the two without looking into the facts. I'm certain that your post was mostly taking advantage of the April 1st date, but sometimes people say in jest what they're afraid to say in ernest. Don't be afraid to put your cards on the table with me.

Regards,
Bob Kuczewski
Founder - Torrey Hawks Hang Gliding Club

It's April Fools, guess I got you!

Steve Rodrigues wrote:It's April Fools, guess I got you!

I knew the date, and if you'd left out the "Para Hawks" I would not have taken offense.

But using that name to mock the idea of starting a new club deserved a response.

For those who don't know, we've been through hell down here with the paragliding concession. I can say that as both a hang glider pilot and as a paraglider pilot. We've had David Beardslee kicked out for life with no reason. We've had other pilots bullied and in some cases physically assaulted and battered. We've had our pilots threatened to be expelled for landing on the beach while the paragliding concession intentionally sent students to land on the beach. The site is rated H4 for hang gliding and P3 for paragliding, but paragliding students can make their first solo flights there.

Steve, I've appreciated your membership in the Torrey Hawks, and I've appreciated the support of many Funston pilots for hang gliding at Torrey. I hope we can someday repay the favor. But the war isn't over down here until we can finally get a balanced Soaring Council which gives us fair representation at the site where we should share an equal footing with paragliders.

Hi Steve,

The rules are a bit unclear - can I kite 3 paragliders on launch myself, or do I need to enlist 2 friends? All of my wings need drying out from the ocean landings.

Thanks,

Daniel

whats all this fuss about anyway? It says right here in this topic that paragliding is ok at the fort now...I still don't get why you guys are going at it....
and.....just move the business stuff off this public forum to a private one....
and....why don't you all want to know how your RDs vote? I do...
Diev

Ya..what Diev said. I was taught to never ask for permission, just beg for forgiveness later (and it's easier if you bring a case of beer with you).

That's how paragliding came to the training bowl and now it's accepted that we can fly to the fence......but nobody flys there anyhow.....cause it's not all that fun.

Besides who the hell wants to fly a paraglider when you can fly a hang glider

I'd like to remind everyone that I started this thread as an April Fools joke.
My entire post was fabricated with the intention of bringing some humor to the discussion board.

This thread has gotten way off the intended track and since it was originally a joke thread, sometimes it's not clear if comments are meant as humor or as serious.
I'm going to lock this thread for two reasons: 1, Serious comments would be best posted in their own topic thread so the discussion can remain clear and effective, and 2, this isn't that funny anymore.

If anyone has real concerns about PG at the Fort, I recommend reading the thread titled "Cavallaro messing with Funston : viewtopic.php.html?f=5&t=1133, or if that does not suit your needs, start your own thread!

Cheers!