One difference is USHGA's protection of dealers/instructors
at the expense of the general membership. I was a founding
USHGA member and continued for about 20 years even
after becoming inactive in the sport. My reason for
dropping membership was a new rule (at that time) that
you had to sign a waiver during renewal that absolved
instructors of all damages in the event of an accident
even if it was due to negligence on the part of the
instructor. Although I have never sued anyone in my
life I thought that was over the top. Perhaps the waiver
requirement has since been dropped.



At 22:30 08 January 2005, Eric Greenwell wrote:
wrote:

Bad Decision #2, The hang gliders came to us and wanted
to join as a
division of the SSA. What did we say? No way------we
don't wan't
anything to do with those uncertified things, why
ther're nothing but
lawn chairs hung under bed sheets.

That was over 30 years ago, and I don't think it was
a bad decision
then. Hang gliders were VERY different from sailplanes,
with much lower
performance, not 'getting close' like they are today.
No way to hold
events together, really, and they don't care about
airports and we do,
we can't use their winches or towplanes or instructors
and vice versa,
and so on.

I suspect the personalities of the pilots were very
different, too,
since the sport (back then) attracted people that were
more
'adventuresome' and not so tolerant of official regulation
as sailplane
pilots.

It was definitely a much more dangerous sport then,
and that might
reflected unfavorably on the SSA.

What did the hang gliders do? They
formed their own association and I believe they have
something like 4
times the membership we now enjoy (11,306)

According their website, they had about 10,000 members
in 2002.


So, where are we now and what can we do? First off,
solving our
problems doesn't have anything to do with moving the
office. Secondly,
merging with EAA or AOPA won't solve a thing-------all
that will do is
to insure the loss of our idenity.

I agree with this - this 'solution' has come up several
times over the
last 20 years, and this is the conclusion each time.


We must hang in there and tough it out. I contribute
$100 bucks a year
to the coffers, partially because I know my life membership
was sold
way too cheap. If we get to the point where we can
no longer pay the
bills-----------we might consider asking the hang
gliders if we could
become a division of the USHGA.

I think the two sports and pilots are closer now than
then, so perhaps
more interaction would benefit both groups, but frankly,
I don't even
know how much interaction there is now.

--
Change 'netto' to 'net' to email me directly

Eric Greenwell
Washington State
USA