The Fall 2011 USHPA Board of Directors meeting was held at Kitty Hawk North Carolina. The complete minutes will be available soon, but I thought you might be interested in a few of the highlights.
Paragliders allowed in United States competitions is unchanged for now. If CIVL bans certain types of gliders in competitions then USHPA will ban them as well. CIVL will make a ruling regarding open class gliders by next spring.
The fall 2012 USHPA election will be conducted on line. Mail in ballots will be available for those who want them.
A new way to meet the spot landing requirements for a rating upgrade has been added. Consider the current requirement of three consecutive landings within 50 feet of a designated spot. The alternative criterion would allow the average of three consecutive spot landing distances to be less than 50 feet. So if your first landing is 35 feet from the spot, your second is 65 feet from the spot, and your third is 49 feet from the spot then then the average is less than 50 feet and you meet the spot landing requirement. Under the old rules your second landing would mean you have to start over and your 49 foot away landing would be the first landing in a new set of three attempts.
Speed wings are being included in the USHPA ratings. Speed flying is a new and separate type of flying with its own training and rating program. For those who want to fly only speed wings that is fine with me. However paraglider pilots will not be allowed to fly speed wings at USHPA insured sites without getting a speed flying rating. I was the only dissenting voice to this separate and new requirement for paraglider pilots. In my opinion, and the opinion of several paraglider pilots I spoke with prior to the meeting, a speed wing should be considered as just another type of paraglider. It should be up to the discretion of each paraglider pilot to decide if he wants to fly a speed wing. Paraglider pilots make such decisions whenever they are considering moving to a higher performing wing. It seems that requiring separate training and special skills for a P-3 or P-4 to be able to decide to fly a speed wing is being too protective.
Look for an announcement from USHPA regarding all the new rules to appear in your in-box in a few weeks.
Bill Helliwell
Region 3 Director
Fall 2011 USHPA BOD meeting
Moderator: Chip