ST. PAUL, MINN. — Based on the flow of information, the last year in the current millennium could be interesting. I have news about Altair, Wills, Brightstar, US Aeros, and the Exxtacy. As the first snow finally flies in a weirdly warm winter in Minnesota, all this flurry of news seems positive for an exciting 1999. Let’s run through each briefly, but first a last minute gift mention or two for those of you who got cash for Christmas. ••• Lisa Tate has started Soaring Dreams, and offered a color catalog of tasteful gifts you might want to consider. Fortunately it isn’t all Christmas oriented although some attractive ornaments are part of the inventory. Tate also has some very distinctive trophies to use for competitions, plus mugs and mobiles, wood and glass picture frames and more. Art takes form in several mediums and although we’ve seen gift offerings before, Lisa achieves a singular niche.
Archives for February 2005
Product Lines – January 1999
ST. PAUL, MINN. — At the recent Board of Directors meeting in Colorado Springs (USHGA’s home), our capable Executive Director Phil Bachman presented a typically thorough report. In his presentation, Phil referenced several recent statistics which might interest you. • Membership sits at a bit over 9,500 members of which 71% are HG pilots and 35% are PG. The numbers don’t add to 100 as they include Dual memberships. We’re almost exactly a two-thirds, one-third split these days. • Nearly 20% of all members are new, a figure that surprises many old timers. In fact, though, we lose about 20% every year as well, so we’re staying about even. If we could trim some of those losses and keep adding a few extra new members, we could grow at a comfortable pace. Attrition comes from HG; growth in PG makes up for the difference numerically. • Thirty percent of HG ratings are Is and IIs, a healthy total of learning pilots, I feel.
Product Lines – December 1998
ST. PAUL, MINN. — I recently paid a visit to Lookout Mountain Flight Park. What changes! Back in the early ’80s, I ran a flight shop and school called Crystal Air Sports. I’d been at it five or six years when Matt Taber came to Chattanooga. He took over the already-well-known site at Lookout and quickly proved to be a worthy competitor. Eighteen years after his arrival, his business shows the results of long hours and hard work. Its a sprawling, ambitious enterprise of million-dollar proportions. ••• Recently, Wallaby Ranch’s David Glover jumped tracks and took employment from Lookout after several years with Malcolm Jones’ operation in Florida. On my visit, Glover had logged a couple months in north Georgia and was becoming quite comfortable with his new digs. He and Taber gave me the royal tour of the place, although they couldn’t produce quite the right conditions for me to sample some of the park’s flight toys.
Product Lines – November 1998
ST. PAUL, MINN. — Following on bits left over from October’s "Product Lines"… ••• In the land of hurricanes and tropical storms, we find the East Coast’s Turbulent Talent Triangle… I’m referring to the movement of talent, to headhunting (yes, within our little sport!) and to new relationships among leading east coast centers of hang gliding activity. But let’s set the record straight. The east may not have the mountain peaks or the sky-high reputation of the west coast but more students are trained in the east than anywhere in America. Look at the list published every month. Nine months into ’98, three schools accounted for 45% of all Hang Is issues and 35% of all Hang IIs issues (LMFP has 28% and 24% by themselves). From these flight factories come people with experience and that’s the point here. • David Glover, until recently manager of Wallaby Ranch is now at Lookout Mountain Flight Park.
Product Lines – October 1998
ST. PAUL, MINN. — I very rarely refer to something already Published in Hang Gliding MagazineHG mag, but this time I feel driven to make an exception. The subject is accidents, a topic eruditely addressed (as always) by Mike Meier in the September issue. ••• Before getting to his essay, I first read what I viewed to be a disturbing set of statistics: 10.1% of respondees to USHGA’s survey (of 1,169 members) reported an injury accident. Two thirds of these among hang glider pilots and more than half the time medical or professional treatment was needed; one sixth required overnight hospitalization. Good heavens! Odds of one in twenty needing a doctor in the next year are not encouraging. Over half appear to be at launch or landing. ••• Combine those sobering facts with Meier’s compelling message about pilot decision making as the primary determinant of safety. We’ll need to work hard if we are to alter the scenario.
Product Lines – September 1998
ST. PAUL, MINN. — Response to the mention of Mondial De L’Air (the French light aviation airshow) was surprisingly strong. Though I believed Americans were only mildly interested in international hang gliding news, evidently some readers perceive that European innovations are worth following more closely. Examples of recent impactful developments include topless gliders and D-cell rigid wings… both ideas sailed across the Atlantic to significantly affect the wings we buy and fly here at home. Fascinating. • Anyway, let me provide an address to write for info (several of you asked). Contact: Edition Retine (the same as the publishing office of Vol Libre), 3 rue Ampere, 94200 Ivry-sur-Seine, FRANCE. Call: 011-33-1-46-72-74-60 or fax to 011-33-1-46-58-97-52. Though a 1999 event appears certain, no date has been announced to my knowledge. ••• John Heiney’s new Altair company is about to offer their new Saturn hang glider, proving this isn’t a one-glider company. Every now and then a new glider comes along, but failing to acquire enough market mass, it disappears without a follow-on design ever emerging.
Product Lines – August 1998
ST. PAUL, MINN. — Long recognized as the premier hang gliding contest of the year, the 1998 Nationals are over and we have a winner. Well, in a sense, "we" don’t because the two top placing pilots in flex-wings (Class I) are not Americans. Congratulations to one of the world’s winningest pilots, Manfred Ruhmer, flying his Icaro Laminar ST. In second place was a Ukrainian not well known to U.S. pilots. Oleg Bondarchuk flew his Aeros Stealth KPL past the first Class I American, Chris Arai, in his Wills Wing Fusion. All three pilots deserve a virtual round of applause. As with other contest reports, I’ll leave the main story to a follow-up article, but in this edition of "Product Lines" we’ll look at the gliders that made up the field. ••• Certainly the U.S. Nationals bore more than a passing resemblance to the Atlantic Coast Championships last April (both directed by USHGA president GW Meadows, by the way).
Product Lines – July 1998
Tallard, FRANCE — Across the big drink this month for an airshow lending some international flavor to "Product Lines." ••• Perhaps the most fascinating thing I observed was the proliferation of D-cell wings. The question in my mind is no longer IF D-cell wings will proliferate, but perhaps instead, "Will flex wings survive?" In truth, I don’t see the end of our popular, lightweight, easily folded, easily foot-launched and -landed wings. But I’m less sure of this forecast than I once was. ••• I saw a slightly different version of the Exxtasy called the Revolution (aimed at powered trikes) and two new free flight entries from other manufacturers. • One D-cell wing was from Icaro 2000, builder of the Laminar ST topless flex wing. The other was the Ixbo from Tecma, a French company that few Americans know. La Mouette did not show their Top Secret model. • Icaro’s Lumina is nearly identical to the Exxtasy but uses ailerons versus spoilerons and hooks the pilot’s harness to the controls (versus Exxtasy’s control bar linkup).
Product Lines – June 1998
ST. PAUL, MINN. — The season seemed to take off in particularly significant way for me and about a hundred others, as the Wallaby Ranch hosted top-ranked pilots at the Atlantic Coast Championships (ACC). The place was a hotbed of activity as the event opened, right on the heels of the Sun ‘n Fun airshow only 35 miles away. After four days and four rounds, the action was slowed a bit by weather. But I’ve got preliminary results for you as this issue goes to press. You are sure to see a thorough report in the magazine. And those of you on Davis Straub’s eMail list got daily updates. In fact, after fetching results from the web (GW Meadows’ JustFly site) on most days, I got the final figures from Straub’s eMail list. Thanks, Davis! Wired pilots can subscribe at ozreport@kurious.org for no cost. ••• From that report, here’s a summary: After flying consistently for the whole meet, Ramy Yenetz won the rigid wing and overall class flying a new Brightstar Millennium that he borrowed for the contest.
Product Lines – May 1998
ST. PAUL, MN — Well, I don’t know about you, but I was most impressed in March when I looked at the then-new Hang Gliding. The issue was full of new four-color ads. These were from American companies, too! Terrific. ••• Welcome to eye-catching displays from U.S. & UK Airwave for their Xtreme, developed at Lookout Mountain, Tennessee; from Thinair Designs on behalf of manufacturer Brighstar for the Millennium; and from U.S. Aeros for their Stealths and gear. They join regular color advertisers Seedwings, Wills Wing, and Altair. ••• All totalled, I counted no less than nine suppliers of gliders and that’s the best news I’ve seen in a while. Of these, five brands are Made-in-America gliders. Welcome newcomers! I can’t believe the established brands have much to worry about; their wings have weathered other foreign invasions and new domestic brands. More hopefully, perhaps such combined efforts will help in enlisting in new enthusiasts to the sport.
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