Sylmar Hang Gliding Association

For a "chapter" club, USHPA requires for sites involved:

"The chapter will monitor or administer the site to assure that only USHPA
member pilots fly the site."

The spirit of such text just seems to me to be un-American.

FAA does not privatize the airspace; all citizens have a right to use airspace to navigate by flying. So, what is this push in that chapter requirement? That "only" seems really a tight spirit?

Maybe USHPA is confusing chapter requirements with insurance requirements.

As I recall Chapters are only required to have about 70? percent USHPA members. So if a site is not using USHPA site insurance, why would that other 30% not be able to fly???

Much of this confusion stems from USHPA's unchallenged monopoly for so long. With the continued growth of alternatives (like the US Hawks), it will be good to question many of the assumptions that we've blindly accepted in the past.

Great topic Joe!!

With the continued decline of our sport, maybe it would be better if we stand together with a growing segment (PG) that has similar interest in protecting sites. Numbers matter. So does insurance.

Hi TG, your bring up an important question which deserves a dedicated topic, I think. Will you be starting a topic on that question? I will watch for such and participate, if you do. Thanks.

The present topic concerns a careful study of the USHPA clause presented in the opening post.

Neil Armstrong flew hang glider and went to the moon also. He did not join a hang glider association. Suppose he arrived at Sylmar LZ flying a HG. USHPA seemingly wants SHGA to "monitor or administer the site to assure that only USHPA member pilots fly the site." Somehow it seems un-American to me to assure that an intrepid aeronaut pilot does not land when he needs to land his aircraft (any sort, even HG). Run out and yell at Neil: "Hey you up there, though you need to land, we are going to assure that you do not land at this LZ!" Safe-splat: Neil lands at the Sylmar LZ, in this proposed scenario. USHPA pulls the plug on SHGA's club chapterhood for not assuring that only USHPA pilot members fly the site!

I am betting there is a less insular way of dealing with HG clubs that may want to be "chapter" clubs. Maybe less intrusive overbearing relations could be constructed. Maybe get off the micro managing of chapter clubs.

The premise of this thread is that an organization is un-American in setting limits on its requirements for membership or participation. That argument is specious, false. In our times, it is the epitome of "American" to limit participation and membership. One cannot drive a car legally without insurance. One cannot fly a plane without extensive training and, usually, insurance. A business cannot hope to survive in the present environment without proper insurance. There is insurance to cover what another insurance doesn't specifically cover.

In short, it is "American" to live in fear of "what if". What if I have an accident? What if there's a fire? What if I crash into the neighbor's roof? What if my dog bites a burglar? What if my customer spills hot coffee in her lap?

It would be great to return to an America in which individual responsibility was paramount but that America has long since devolved into the present mire ruled by political correctness.

Sorry, Joe, the organizations we belong to are just doing their best to play the game as it is presently rigged. And our membership, in greater numbers, is our best hope for survival.

TG, your strawman premise was NOT the premise of the topic thread. Sorry. Differently, one sentence is being examined for its possible un-American fit. Your strawman premise is another topic. Again, now twice, you have started new topics within a lead topic; it may be informative to deal with your second topic also, but in a dedicated topic thread; I'd be glad to participate in your second topic should you begin a topic thread on it. Your participation on the present topic is invited. I do not think---applying your second topic--that you would enjoy someone ignoring the limits of your started-topic thread. Having now to twice face your first and second distinct topics does take energy away from the foundation topic; I hope and trust yet that your intentions are innocent in such pattern; you signed up with "TG" on the day of this topic thread and your first and second post in the "TG" history are two hijack resultants, perhaps innocent---time may tell. Both your off-topic runs end with a promotion of the same one theme paraphrase here: Status quo to have numbers of participants for best hope. If my paraphrase comes close, then such is certainly not the topic that I have introduced to discuss. While in this topic thread, you are invited to have focus on the topic; TIA.

The program is not permitting an edit. In the former post, I had intended to restate the topic:

THE TOPIC:

For a "chapter" club, USHPA requires for sites involved:

"The chapter will monitor or administer the site to assure that only USHPA
member pilots fly the site."

The spirit of such text just seems to me to be un-American.
FAA does not privatize the airspace; all citizens have a right to use airspace to navigate by flying. So, what is this push in that chapter requirement? That "only" seems really a tight spirit.

WHAT is this push in that chapter requirement? Is that "ONLY" over clubs a tight spirit?
=================================

Joe Faust wrote:FAA does not privatize the airspace; all citizens have a right to use airspace to navigate by flying. =================================

Still wrong, Joe. Privatization has nothing to do with this topic. Flying, just as driving, is a privilege subject to the regulation imposed by our government's administrating agency. Your privilege to fly or drive may be rescinded. Our governing agency, USHPA, sets the rules for our conduct and provides the coverage umbrella of insurance, not the FAA. We abide by the rules of our organization, in lieu of those that could have been imposed by the FAA... Or not, at our own peril.

FAA could shut us down at any time. And that's the American way.

TG, the topic includes the statement. You are wrestling with the statement; inasmuch as you wrestle with the statement, you are on the topic. Inasmuch as you might get off topic, then so. Privatization has been woven into the topic of this topic thread. Do any actions of the USHPA begin to look like an attempt to privatize some airspace or attempt to support a privatization pressure of some corporations or clubs? If one finds such pressure, then perhaps look for alternative ways of conduct that respect the fundamental rights of all citizens to the airspace.

FAA is an agent to administer the right to navigate the airspace. Human and animals have a right to navigate the airspace. FAA does not exist to shut down animals or birds or insects, but to assist people in exercising our rights to use the airspace. Our right does not include any right of hurting people or animals without just cause. The FAA does not own the airspace. The airspace belongs to earth and its inhabitants. It has been found by USA as a healthy thing to have an FAA to assist people to have a safe experience while we all use our right to the airspace. Modifications by law have had to be made to assist humans to safely exercise their right to use the airspace. Congress founds the FAA; Congress hopefully will maintain a direction that helps people use land and air equitably. When differences exist between what the FAA decides and what the people decide, there are appeal processes and legal paths for settling the differences. With good cause Congress may permit sectors of the airspace to be designated robustly for limited uses and thus encroach on the broad right for all citizens to navigate the airspace in such sectors; the FAA helps to keep things orderly as such designations are materialized; fly a HG into missile practice range and risk huge disorder. Fly a hang glider to disturb the peace of a bird sanctuary and find harsh penalties at one's door. Etc.
USHPA sets rules for its members, not for non-member hang gliders. USHPA owns and controls no airspace in the USA. None that I have in my notes; please provide facts for any airspace that might be owned and controlled by USHPA. Even though the wording of the concessionaire at Torrey Pines reads as though the concessionaire owns and controls the airspace, it does not. A hang glider is free to soar Torrey Pines lift zone without using a radio, for example, even though the concessionaire sets a rule for radio. The airspace there is not controlled airspace and not under the control of the here-today-gone-tomorrow concessionaire.
Our USA airspace belongs to the people of the USA subject to the body of regulations approved by the agents of the people's government. One's right to navigate the airspace must not injure other people's rights for the similar broad use; and law may come into place to assure that one does not injure the rights of others.

Joe, you should check your definitions. A right is something that cannot be legally taken away from you. You have a right to speak your opinion (U.S.). You have a right to breathe the air. You have a right to worship as you please (U.S.).

You do not have a right to use airspace. If you did, you could fly your UAV wherever you please. You could fly a Cessna without a pilot's license. You could fly your hang glider in the Grand Canyon.

The government, FAA, NPS, whichever, regulates your use of airspace and can legally keep you from using it. The FAA shut down everyone's "right" to airspace after 9/11. A [i]right[/i] is not rescindable.

In your own words, you describe reasons for regulation that must be followed to exercise the privilege of flight afforded by government agencies yet you continue to discount the agency that set the rules for our purposes. I understand the intrinsic revulsion we free-flight pilots have for regulation. I don't like regulation at all. But, given that our sport has a tenuous hold on existence, following guidelines to use the airspace is paramount to its survival. Every pilot should join the USHPA, support it and help guide it. They may be overstaffed with PG enthusiasts and that may color many of their decisions. Change that. Run for office. Get other HG pilots to run for office. Send a message about what you don't agree with. Posting grumblings about their edicts on a local forum of like-minded pilots accomplishes nothing.

Pointing that out was my motive here to begin with. It's been fun. Ta, ta!

TG,
As noted, time will tell. You finally revealed that you had an off-topic motive that you just fulfilled. You stayed three times pushing off-topic to serve your chosen motive. You used space belonging to one topic to push a different topic; and you apparently admit motive just for such conduct. Your first offense brought a polite invitation to start a topic thread on your interest; you did not take that suggestion while pushing further and further on your distinct topic. Your various other topics are worthy of attention, but the tactic of robbing a topic is questionable tactic. I am moved to enter your other topics, but stressing one topic with the other topics weakens focus.

Knowing well a right and how it has limits is rarely a easy matter to master. Law tries in its own sphere to wrestle with rights; but there are rights that subsist no matter what the law is doing. Law has limits; law may contradict itself; law changes. The right to navigate in earth's airspace may be managed in various ways in various nations and places; the management may be fair or not, met with consensus or not. Power to manage varies; power might be fair or not; power might be helpful or hurtful; power might be with large or small consensus from those affected by exercise of power. Some people will see power as definer of things establishing privilege relation where essential rights are core. Power may blunt the exercise of rights by moving perception to privilege. Cooperation may permit equitable fulfillment of rights. It may be a privilege to exercise rights in cooperation with others having a similar right. Power may damp the exercise of rights by establishing with force and law a system of privilege structures; assent to Power is a choice; we have the right of choosing; and it is a privilege to exercise the right of choosing.

Rights have been damped by law; such may be benevolent and accepted; but sometimes law damps rights malevolently. Damping does not remove the right. Squelching the exercise of a right does not remove the right. Law declaring a right is not a right does not cause the right to vanish; law may invite Power to squelch the exercise of an extant right.
There are cooperations needed to exercise the right to speak opinions. There are cooperations needed to exercise the right to breathe air. There are cooperations needed to exercise the right to navigate the airspace. Law, rules, regulations over airspace does not cause the right to navigate the airspace to vanish; no, the right remains; full understanding of the right to navigate the airspace is not simple; the full understanding of the right to navigate the airspace would integrate how the right is shaped by dust, wind, insects, birds, weather, others exercising the same right, physics, gravity, effects of use, etc.

============ Back on the topic of this topic thread:

Coming from afar, restating the topic:

For a "chapter" club, USHPA requires for sites involved:

"The chapter will monitor or administer the site to assure that only USHPA
member pilots fly the site."

The spirit of such text just seems to me to be un-American.
FAA does not privatize the airspace; all citizens have a right to use airspace to navigate by flying. So, what is this push in that chapter requirement? That "only" seems really a tight spirit.

Notice that the topic holds a quoted sentence. Notice that the the topic challenge regards an opinion that is fuzzy by use of the term "seems" which exhibits an opinion. The opinion begins to be supported supposedly by bringing in a statement that may or may not be true, perhaps in need of altering: that is, "FAA does not privatize airspace;" That statement may be debated.

Then another supposedly supportive statement is made: "all citizens have a right to use airspace to navigate by flying." That statement may be debated; does it hold or not. TG argues that no such right exists. I've given some response to his points; the concepts of rights and privileges and limits to rights or the full meaning of a particular right are open for discussion. How do these facets affect whether or not USHPA's given quote affects fidelity with American ways?

Just what does it mean in topic: "fly the site"? Unfolding that part of the quote may be interesting for determining the American spirit of the quote and the "only" dimension to the quote. Buried in many clubs text is a confusion of use of land and use of airspace. It seems that there is a wide assumption that use of airspace is mechanically and perhaps legally the same as use of the land related to a "site". Just what "site" means may need some careful attention. A microlight flying into Torrey Pines air lift zone may shut its engine and enjoy a hang gliding (soaring) session without using the patch of green grass leased to a corporation; that hang glider session exercising the right to navigate the airspace (limited in exercise by birds, insects, FAA, other occupants of the airspace, wind, gravity, dust, etc.) does not need an USHPA overlay. The Torrey Hawks hang gliding club there at Torrey Pines is a chapter of the USHPA; that chapter does not act to assure that the proposed hang glider session be operated by a USHPA member; the microlight morphed to hang glider session goes beyond the "only" of topic quote. It would seem un-American to me for the USHPA to cancel Torrey Hawks chapter status for not assuring that that hang glider session was done by a USHPA member. Such example is just a start of unfolding this present topic.

Can you two squash beef somewhere else? This is getting weird.

Hi OP,
Sure. To your question. No problem, OP. Thanks.
I'll not post further on this topic unless someone shows interest in the topic. Fair enough. I was guessing someone might want to explore the topic; if not, then there is no need for further posts in this topic thread.
Best of lift to you and yours, OP,
Joe

OP wrote:Can you two squash beef somewhere else? This is getting weird.

Squash beef sounds yummy for Autumn, OP! Why don't we whip some up for the Dahlsten Cup cook-off and pot luck. Martha would be so pleased!

Joe Faust wrote:Hi OP,
Sure. To your question. No problem, OP. Thanks.
I'll not post further on this topic unless someone shows interest in the topic. Fair enough. I was guessing someone might want to explore the topic; if not, then there is no need for further posts in this topic thread.
Best of lift to you and yours, OP,
Joe

Actually, Joe, when you decide to go off on a political bender, just post it in the Politics/Off Topic section so no one reads it in the first place. And, if an administrator is reading this, why hasn't this thread already been moved? No need for boring diatribe in the sections anyone actually opens.

AND, great looking stew, Tangent Man. Sadly, I won't be able to make the Dahlsten.

I thought that Beef Squash was going to be this:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s8HvjchxBVA[/youtube]

Thanks for your continued interest in the topic (see start post).
So, a teaser:

When considering the topic's lifted quote, one might wonder how the sentence might be tweaked. Have your hand at tweak efforts.

Example of a tweaking effort:

"The chapter will monitor or administer the site to assure that HGP-rated pilots fly the site."

Then pilots with HGP rating would be welcomes to "fly the site" (whatever that may mean, yet to be examined fully. Do you have your HGP rating yet? Are you with a discussion topic that lets all in the world discuss your HGP rating? How are you adding depth to your HGP rating?

An HGP rating is a rating in the USA that is a matured outgrowth of the Otto Membership. The HGP rating is available to most of those who participate in this SHGA forum.

http://www.worldhangglidingassociation. ... orSHGA.png

Joe,

I'm sorry I haven't kept up with this topic. I apologize to you.

TG,

Joe's use of "un-American" is exactly on target.

It was never intended by our founders that it should be a "privilege" to walk on public roads or to ride a horse on public roads or drive a carriage on public roads. These were so obvious, that they weren't even included in the list of rights spelled out in our founding documents (rights such as "the right of the people to keep and bear arms").

The fact that we're required to carry liability insurance to drive on our public roads is a symptom of a disease that is strangling our country. It's based on the false premise that we each must have the financial wherewithal to cover any potential damage that we *might* do.

That's an unsustainable model and it will crush our ability to compete in the world just as it is crushing Joe Greblo's ability to run an affordable hang gliding school at Dockweiler.

Imagine if you had to carry liability insurance for everything that you could potentially do by intention or accident to another person? You would need massive insurance for the knives in your kitchen sink, for the hammer in your toolbox, for the shovel in your garage. You would need to be insured against giving someone a cold or the flu or anything else. You couldn't afford the insurance to operate a computer on the internet since the potential damage you could do there is staggering.

My point is that we've gone the wrong direction by requiring people to pay in advance for crimes they haven't yet committed (that's really what liability insurance is, if you think about it). That's what threatens our flight sports, and it's also what threatens the freedoms that were given to us by our founders.

My guess, TG, is that you're a relatively young person or you would know that there's been a time (in my lifetime and in Joe's) when liability insurance wasn't required for people to drive on the roads. That's currently still true for hang gliding (and flying airplanes, by the way). But we are losing our rights by our slow acquiescence to USHPA's increasing demands on insured sites.

Finally, I will point out that hang gliding and paragliding is one of the few sports that's been strangled with insurance requirements. We don't require insurance for bicycling, surfing, skiing, horseback riding, and many other sports which can result in bodily injury. Why have we allowed it to be done to us? We've allowed it because our national monopoly (USHPA) has fed it to us because it gives them the power over us. I have had a good safety record at Sylmar, and Crestline, and Torrey, and Funston, and Point of the Mountain, and everywhere else I've flown. Yet USHPA has taken away my ability to fly at all of those sites because they didn't like the political stands I've taken. That's also un-American. The US Hawks is being formed as an alternative, and we may have to provide insurance at some of our sites. But rather than pushing insurance it will be our goal to try to free as many sites and clubs from that requirement as possible. That's real freedom, and regaining it even in the tiny sport of hang gliding is a step in the right direction for the future of our nation.

Those who would trade their freedom for security ... shall have neither.

TG wrote:

Joe Faust wrote:FAA does not privatize the airspace; all citizens have a right to use airspace to navigate by flying. =================================

Still wrong, Joe. Privatization has nothing to do with this topic. Flying, just as driving, is a privilege subject to the regulation imposed by our government's administrating agency. Your privilege to fly or drive may be rescinded. Our governing agency, USHPA, sets the rules for our conduct and provides the coverage umbrella of insurance, not the FAA. We abide by the rules of our organization, in lieu of those that could have been imposed by the FAA... Or not, at our own peril.

FAA could shut us down at any time. And that's the American way.

Boy, I will say there are a lot of misconceptions out there.

The USHPA is not a governing agency. The USHPA is a non-profit organization representing the interests of hang gliding and paragliding. The governing agency of the people’s airspace in the United States is the Federal Aviation Administration created under the authority of congress by the Federal Aviation Act of 1958. The Federal Aviation Act of 1958 declared the right of the citizens to freely transit through the airspace of the United States and the Federal Aviation Administration protects that right insuring the right is exercised safely by all using the airspace.

In the Federal Aviation Act of 1958 Congress wrote:SEC. 104. There is hereby recognized and declared to exist in behalf of any citizen of the United States a public right of freedom of transit through the navigable airspace of the United States.

That right is now codified in 49 U.S. Code § 40103(a)(2) – Sovereignty and use of airspace.

Hang Gliders and Paragliders are regulated by the Federal Aviation Administration under Title 14 Part 103.

On July 30, 1982 Federal Aviation Regulation Part 103 was adopted and became effective on October 3, 1982 regulating Ultralight Vehicles by the Federal Aviation Administration, which includes hang gliding and paragliding. While the rules applied to Ultralight Vehicles are brief (103.1 through 103.23), what is clear is the Federal Government administered through the Federal Aviation Administration is the controlling authority of the navigable airspace over the United States which includes the airman and air aircraft transitioning through that airspace.

In the furtherance of that authority, FAR 103.5 requires written permission from the Administrator to deviate from the simple Ultralight Rules. Under the authority of the Federal Aviation Administrator part 103.7 states the “operators of ultralight vehicles are not required to meet any aeronautical knowledge, age, or experience requirements to operate those vehicles or to have airman or medical certificates.� That is great news from the Federal Government who is the controlling authority.

The only self regulation is if we as a group cannot exercise our right without endangering people and property, the FAA will petition congress to pass more rules ensuring the safety of the people and property.

We have a right to fly in the sky, safely.