Sylmar Hang Gliding Association

Rob McKenzie on the HG instructor situation at Marshall, the significance of USHGA site insurance, and the importance of H2s if the sport is to survive. From Oz Report Index Mar 16 2006 Topic: Insurance

INSTRUCTOR INSURANCE
Our local site has lost nearly all its full time instructors. 5 local HG instructors in 1982 became 1 since 1995. And in PG, 6 local instructors in 1994 became 1 as of this year. I am the only full time HG and PG instructor left here at Marshall Peak now. I can state that NONE of the instructors that quit did so out of lack of liability insurance. It was simply they were not paying their bills or if they did there was not enough profit to justify the time being invested. My wife and I are doing fine and have no desire for personal liability insurance. I believe the best way to make a profit is to keep expenses low and streamline what we get accomplished in the time we expend. That combination is what we were much better at than our business competition. In teaching, we all did pretty much the same thing. We all had students to teach.

SITE INSURANCE
If our site (Crestline/ Marshall Peak) lost its site insurance, it would close. A 35 year history of gliding in the valley, a 230 member club (CSS), a $500,000 investment by the State of California, all would be terminated. Many, probably the vast majorioty, of pilots would simply call it the end of the line as far as continuing in the sport and move on to other recreational activities.

COMMERCIAL USE OF CLUB SITE
If the local club could ONLY be allowed to continue its site insurance if NO club member ever did commercial activities, then yes the club would continue. But the last remaining school (my wife and I/ High Adventure) would quit. The Marshall Peak site would become a destination site and not a place where new pilots (members) are born. If it happened at all sites then all sites would become destination sites. And all sites would simply be an interconnected evaporative reservoir, each pan sucking off the adjacent ones, like in the making of maple syrup until the last of the maple sugar pilots got too old and viscous to fly and the candy store would close.

WHY MEMBERSHIP NUMBERS ARE LOW.
Like the Drake equation in determining the number of aliens civilations (ET's), but simpler because in this case it's just two multipliers. Take the "birth rate" of new pilots coming in, multiply by the "lifespan" (duration) the average new pilot stays in the sport. The product is the average number of pilots at any one time.
BIRTH RATE- I cannot speak for areas outside my own area. But here in socal, it does not pay to advertise. The money spent would be far greater than the increase in business. We therefore cannot afford to increase the dismal percentages which is something on the order of 1 new student per year (combo of HG and PG) for every 400,000 population. (25 in 10 million)
LIFESPAN- We CAN however affect this factor and this is where my wife and I have concentrated our efforts. We do everything we can to keep pilots active as long as possible in the sport.
PHILOSOPHY
I keep hearing a comparison by Kells about how there are more skydivers than HGers. Or from Davis and others about more scuba divers than HGers. Fine, then lets compare. You want to know what the big difference is? It is very much a return on the investment difference. I am not just talking money investment although that's included. It's the overall investment. Time. Lessons. Equipment. Gas. Rack. Storage. Repacks. Rentals. Tows. This is not really a lot different than scuba or skydiving.
And for the RETURN on investment, this is real difference. In skydiving the "goal" is a freefall at 120 mph for 40 seconds. That's what someone with 1000 jumps gets. And the new student on his very first day gets 100% success at reaching that goal. And every time he decides he wants to go skydiving he has an 80 percent chance of it

[happening].

BUT in hang gliding we have lofty and very difficult to obtain goals. We want that elusive 1 hour flight or 5 hour flight or 100 mile XC etc. Do we get success when we decide we want to go hang gliding that day? Start with a 50% chance of even being able to fly. Then if we do fly, it's likely far below our anticipation of what we have as a goal. Like the gambler that keeps dropping money in the slot hoping and hoping for the payoff. Remembering that last really cool flight a couple or more monthss ago when we got our best flight so far that year. Bottom line it takes a special psyche to handle the mental challenge and patience to stay in hang gliding. My goal as an instructor is to encourage all local pilots to enjoy every flight for what it IS whether it was a 15 minute sled or their best flight ever. When they go home feeling satisfied they come back again tomorrow.

If the average new hang 2 only stays in the sport 3 years and we quadruple it to 12 years, then even with no increase in rate of new students our 10,000 member org becomes a 40,000 member org. It just takes 12 years. Wanna double the membership in 10 years? Then double the time the average student stays in the sport.

rob mckenzie

Oz Report Index Mar 16 2006 Topic: Insurance