Flyfunston

Fighting for Hang Gliding in San Diego (please skip if you're not interested in what's going on at other sites).

UShPA's Big Lie

When USHGA was including the sport of paragliding, it was claimed that paragliding would not hurt hang gliding. That was a lie. Let me give just one (painful) example from my own site ... Torrey Pines.

In the late 1970's (before paragliding existed as a sport), the Torrey Pines Soaring Council consisted of 3 sports with 2 representatives per sport for a total of 6. There were 2 hang gliding representatives, 2 sailplane representatives, and 2 RC (Remote Control sailplane) representatives. In those days the 2 hang gliding representatives were ALWAYS hang gliding representatives.

Then came paragliding. USHGA became USHPA and the local San Diego Club became the SDHGPA. The two Soaring Council seats that were once dedicated to HANG GLIDING became HG/PG seats, and in 2007, BOTH of those seats were 100% paragliding leaving the Soaring Council with ZERO active hang gliding representatives. Remember the "lie"?

Over the past 7 years the sport of hang gliding has had to wrestle with both USHPA and the SDHGPA to get ANY representation on that Council. At the current time (January 2014) there are again ZERO active hang gliding pilots on the Torrey Pines Soaring Council. Remember the "lie"?

The RC pilots currently have 3 Soaring Council representatives (yes, they managed to ADD one since the 70's). Their RC representatives are ALWAYS RC representatives. They're not RC representatives one month and sailplane representatives the next. They're ALWAYS 3 DEDICATED RC representatives. The same is true of the sailplane clubs. They ALWAYS have 2 DEDICATED sailplane representatives. But the HG/PG balance waxes and wanes based on the ebbs and flows of both local and national politics. This is unacceptable.

In the spring of 2010 (back when I was a USHPA Director), I introduced a motion which directed USHPA's representative to the Soaring Council to "work" to increase our representation so that our combined sports (hang gliding and paragliding) would at least have the same representation as the RC clubs. The USHPA Board narrowly passed that resolution, but no substantial action has been taken in the 4 years since that passage. This is also unacceptable.

Back in 2007, the Torrey Hawks Hang Gliding Club was formed to ensure fair treatment and fair representation for the sport of hang gliding. In September of 2007, the Torrey Hawks filed a written application to the Soaring Council in accordance with the Council's bylaws. That application has NEVER been approved, and the 7 member Soaring Council remains unbalanced and with ZERO active hang gliding pilots ... to this day. Remember the "lie"?

I am calling on Rich Hass to give the Soaring Council an ultimatum: Either the Soaring Council votes to approve adding the Torrey Hawks or USHPA will leave the Council.

Rich, we've had 4 years of Ken Baier being "nice" to the Council, and the Council has walked all over him (and all over YOUshPa). Four years should be long enough to justify getting "tough" with the Council.

Finally, I'll point out that USHPA SOP 06-01.02 lists what it calls "Chapter Benefits". Among those benefits is an item that states: "Additional leverage in lobbying efforts". The Torrey Hawks has been a USHPA Chapter since September of 2007, and we are still waiting for those benefits. It's time to apply some "leverage" to balance that Council.

Rich Hass, step up for hang gliding at Torrey Pines.

Bob Kuczewski
H4/P4
858-204-7499
[email protected]

Here's a shorter version ...

In 1978 (before paragliding), the sport of hang gliding had 2 seats (out of 6) on the Torrey Pines Soaring Council. They were hang gliding seats for hang gliding pilots.

Today, both of those seats are occupied by active paragliding pilots and there are no active hang gliding pilots on the Torrey Pines Soaring Council.

That's what USHPA has done for the sport of hang gliding in San Diego. Rather than allow the HG pilots to keep their two hang gliding seats and work to add new seats for the sport of paragliding, UShPA (and the SDhgPA) have essentially given those two seats to paragliding. Even worse, they've resisted our hang gliding club's efforts to add new seats to the Council.

I'm sorry the previous message wasn't as concise.

Bob,

Sorry if I'm not well informed, but exactly what authority does the soaring council have over flight operations at Torrey Pines?

Thx

Steve Rodrigues wrote:Bob,

Sorry if I'm not well informed, but exactly what authority does the soaring council have over flight operations at Torrey Pines?

Thx

Hi Steve,

At Funston you have a club. It's surely not a perfect club, but it is a form of self-governance ... pilots deciding what's in their own best interests. That's a good thing.

We don't have that at Torrey. Our land is government land (just as yours is), but we don't have self-governance. We have a concessionaire with a free lease to our City property who gets to make the rules. Imagine some PG pilot convincing your landowner that Funston would be much better managed if he had an exclusive lease and could make all the rules and even decide who could fly and who couldn't. That's essentially what we have at Torrey, and that's what I've been fighting. I've been fighting to give pilots more control of our City-owned land.

Now, fortunately, someone had the foresight to recognize that maybe it might be a good idea to have some kind of pilot oversight. So the Gliderport lease contains this one line:

"WHEREAS, Flight Director/LESSEE will consult with the Torrey Pines Soaring Council, which represents all soaring user groups, in forming the above mentioned rules and regulations"

So that's the total "authority" that the Soaring Council has ... an organization to be "consulted". It's actually pretty pitiful, but it's the best we've got.

I believe the Soaring Council used to have more authority (back in the 70's), but during David Jebb's rule, he pretty much ignored the Soaring Council (Jebb was a former San Diego City police officer, and it's rumored that he has lots of political connections within the City). In fact, when I came along, the Soaring Council hadn't met in years and several of their "members" had died and were never replaced. I found that quote in the lease and began urging the Council members to begin meeting again. The Council held its first "modern" meeting back in 2007, and they've been meeting regularly ever since.

However, Jebb (and now his puppet Robin Marien) have worked to essentially "bribe" the current Soaring Council representatives. They get all kinds of special treatment as long as they don't challenge the Jebb/Marien control. The Council has 7 representatives (3 RC, 2 sailplane, and 2 for "ultralights"). According to the former Chairman of the Council (an RC pilot), the sports of hang gliding and paragliding are really the same and classified as "ultralights" and that's why we only get 2 representatives covering 2 sports. It's ridiculous, and USHPA (which holds one of those 2 "ultralight" seats) should be pounding their shoe on the table demanding at least 2 representatives for EACH of our 2 sports. That's what my spring 2010 USHPA Board resolution was intended to accomplish. But it was never enforced, so we've been screwed out of representation for all this time. Of course, USHPA holds one of our two "ultralight" votes, and they go along with the program because they support the paragliding concession at Torrey. The other "ultralight" seat is held by the San Diego Hang Gliding and Paragliding Association, and they are completely run by PG pilots with ties to the Jebb's and the concessionaire. That club used to be a hang gliding club "back in the day", but after years and years of paraglider-only training at Torrey, our local population of hang glider pilots is now vastly outnumbered by PG pilots (maybe by 5 or 6 to 1?). So hang glider pilots have no chance of any representation in that club. That's why I started the Torrey Hawks - to give hang glider pilots a club that won't ignore hang gliding issues. We were formed in the spring of 2007 (just before the Soaring Council began meeting again). We applied to the Council in September of 2007 around the time that we became a USHPA Chapter. But the Soaring Council has refused to vote on our application, and USHPA has given the Council the "wink wink" signal that they don't want the Hawks added to the Council (stabbing one of their own hang gliding clubs in the back). That's where it stands right now. Rich Hass played a key role in keeping our hang gliding club off of the Soaring Council with the letter that he wrote and gave to Brad Hall back in 2009 when I was a Director.

So to get back to your question, I recognize that the Soaring Council doesn't have any authority, but they do have a voice. I believe if they wrote recommendations, then the City would be going out on a political (and legal) limb to ignore them. That's the role that the Hawks would work to adopt if we were members of the Council.

Does that help? I can write lots more if you like.

Steve Rodrigues wrote:Sorry if I'm not well informed, but exactly what authority does the soaring council have over flight operations at Torrey Pines?

Hi Steve,

As a USHPA Director, would you introduce a motion at this next Board meeting to get USHPA to keep its word to work to balance the Torrey Pines Soaring Council by supporting the only hang gliding club that's applied to the Council in 7 years?

If you're willing to do that, I'd be happy to help you work out the wording.

Thanks.

bobk wrote:Imagine some PG pilot convincing your landowner that Funston would be much better managed if he had an exclusive lease and could make all the rules and even decide who could fly and who couldn't. That's essentially what we have at Torrey, and that's what I've been fighting.

Tragic! But imagine if a hang gliding club convinced the landowner that Funston would be much better managed if they had exclusive rights to use the land, make all the rules, and even decide who could fly and who couldn't. That's what we have at Funston. It's public land - but for some odd reason it's 100% HG operations. Are you fighting to solve that problem as well?

spork wrote:But imagine if a hang gliding club convinced the landowner that Funston would be much better managed if they had exclusive rights to use the land, make all the rules, and even decide who could fly and who couldn't. That's what we have at Funston. It's public land - but for some odd reason it's 100% HG operations. Are you fighting to solve that problem as well?

You're missing a crucial difference Rick. Fellow Feathers does not keep you from flying somewhere else along that same coastline. As a paragliding pilot, you have a launch that you can use to get into the air along that same ridge. We don't have that at Torrey Pines. The Torrey Pines City Park is the ONLY place where it's legal for us to launch along the entire flyable ridge. That creates a monopoly. Believe me, if we had an alternate launch anywhere along that cliff, I'd have said goodbye to the Gliderport years ago, and I'd have been working to improve that alternate launch. As a paragliding pilot, that's where you should be spending your energies ... making sure that your PG launch is as good and secure as possible. That's what grows our access to the sky ... not squabbling to fly the last 10% of the ridge at the expense of the hang gliding pilots who've flown there long before paragliding existed.

bobk wrote:You're missing a crucial difference Rick. Fellow Feathers does not keep you from flying somewhere else along that same coastline.

In fact they're not keeping me from flying any portion of the coastline. But they have claimed prime public real-estate as their own.

...not squabbling to fly the last 10% of the ridge at the expense of the hang gliding pilots who've flown there long before paragliding existed.

No squabbling needed - and it's not at anyone's expense. If they did want that airspace as HG-only they should be trying to reach a mutual arrangement with the PG community.

spork wrote:If they did want that airspace as HG-only they should be trying to reach a mutual arrangement with the PG community.

And who in the paragliding community could give them any assurance that they could keep that airspace? Who could guarantee to the Fellow Feathers that paragliding pilots won't be flying there next year or the year after that or whenever the next "spork" comes along? Who has the authority to speak for all current paragliding pilots and all future paragliding pilots?

You see, you've asked the Fellow Feathers to give up something that they do have (control of the ground) in exchange for something that you can't guarantee (control of the airspace). So why should they want to make that trade? I certainly wouldn't.

The Fellow Feathers can't even count on USHPA to help because USHPA is becoming a paragliding organization. I don't know why Steve, Urs, and the other USHPA-loyalists can't see that, but history will record them as the Neville Chamberlain's of our sport.

bobk wrote:And who in the paragliding community could give them any assurance that they could keep that airspace?

I'll talk to you about that when you represent the Fellow Feathers or the GGNRA.

You see, you've asked the Fellow Feathers to give up something that they do have (control of the ground) in exchange for something that you can't guarantee (control of the airspace).

They control the ground for now. But I'm willing to bet that site will be either biwingual or closed before too much longer.

spork wrote:

bobk wrote:And who in the paragliding community could give them any assurance that they could keep that airspace?

I'll talk to you about that when you represent the Fellow Feathers or the GGNRA.

Translation: There is no one who could give that assurance ... and Spork knows it.

spork wrote:

bobk wrote:You see, you've asked the Fellow Feathers to give up something that they do have (control of the ground) in exchange for something that you can't guarantee (control of the airspace).

They control the ground for now. But I'm willing to bet that site will be either biwingual or closed before too much longer.

I wouldn't take your bet, because I fear that you're right. I fear that with UShPA's help (and possibly your own) that hang gliding at Funston will end up in the back seat just as it at Torrey. If you look back through my own posts on this forum, you'll see that I've been the "Paul Revere" warning of that future. Unfortunately, very few have been listening.

bobk wrote:Translation: There is no one who could give that assurance ... and Spork knows it.

I thought we talked about you speaking for me. Translation - it's a complicated topic and not one that I care to debate with you.

bobk wrote:I fear that with UShPA's help (and possibly your own) that hang gliding at Funston will end up in the back seat just as it at Torrey.

The Fellow Feathers don't need a lick of help from me to fuck up their own gig. I presume you've seen the list of complaints and violations from just the few months preceding the recent USHPA visit.

bobk wrote:There is no one who could give that assurance

sport wrote:it's a complicated topic and not one that I care to debate with you.

There's no need to debate it. If you have a way for PG pilots to somehow assure HG pilots that they won't push the camel further under the tent, then that's a pretty important part of the puzzle. Please share it.

If it involves USHPA pulling ratings, that's only as good as Rich Hass's word. And if you believe his word (I don't, and I've got the knife wounds in the back to prove it), then what about the next PG President of USHPA ... and the next?

Rick, I'm not just sparring with you here. I'm asking a serious question as to how you (or anyone) can assure the Fellow Feathers that any deals they might make would even be honored? If you've got an answer, then please share it. Thanks.

bobk wrote:Rick, I'm not just sparring with you here. I'm asking a serious question as to how you (or anyone) can assure the Fellow Feathers that any deals they might make would even be honored? If you've got an answer, then please share it. Thanks.

I'm not offering any deals. I don't represent the PG or HG community. I offered a proposal at one time and was shouted down, not allowed to speak, insulted, and threatened. That was the end of it. The Fellow Feathers claim that they don't want PG's in "their" airspace - but there is no "their" airspace. I keep hearing about the camel's nose being in the tent, but the entire camel IS in the tent. There are no rules or laws about PG's in that airspace.

I have nothing to debate with you, and no reason to.

Thanks Rick.

From what I've read on this topic, there's no way that the Fellow Feathers could be assured that any agreement would be honored. Under those circumstances, I think they are wise to simply not enter into agreements which cannot be enforced. I think that's a reasonable place to conclude this aspect of the discussion.

I am sorry if you were shouted down, not allowed to speak, insulted, or threatened. As a biwingual pilot myself (H4/P4) I've gotten the same treatment from the paragliding community here in San Diego (SDHGPA). None of those things are conducive to reaching a fair solution.

I will also comment that you've been very civil during our telephone conversations and very generous with your time. Please call any time.

Sincerely,
Bob Kuczewski

bobk wrote:From what I've read on this topic, there's no way that the Fellow Feathers could be assured that any agreement would be honored. Under those circumstances, I think they are wise to simply not enter into agreements which cannot be enforced.

If they want more PG's in that airspace and none on the ground they're making the right decision.

spork wrote:

bobk wrote:From what I've read on this topic, there's no way that the Fellow Feathers could be assured that any agreement would be honored. Under those circumstances, I think they are wise to simply not enter into agreements which cannot be enforced.

If they want more PG's in that airspace and none on the ground they're making the right decision.

Are you saying that MORE PG pilots will be flying in the Funston airspace without launching and landing rights than would be flying if they had launching and landing rights? Does that mean they'll be doing it to intentionally provoke the Funston hang gliding pilots?

If so, do you think this promotes harmony between the sports?