ST. PAUL, MINN. — Before we get started this month, I want to make note of HG editor Gil Dodgen’s passage into his third decade of preparing our monthly magazine. If memory serves (and it occasionally doesn’t these days), Gil has logged 21 years as this is written. Starting in January 1978, he preceded my own entry by a year or so. "Product Lines" is approaching a big birthday as well, clocking a full 20 years with the upcoming May issue. Geez! Twenty years of a column a month (I think I missed only one along the way)… gosh, are we all getting old? Naaah! We’re all getting higher in better gliders and with greater ease than ever. What’s to lament? So, on with the show. ••• Info arrived from a small survey of leaders in the worldwide hang gliding community coordinated by Dutchman Bart Doets, whose writing I long followed in Britain’s SkyWings.
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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 – 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 – 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.
Product Lines – April 1998
ST. PAUL, MN — Folks, right off, I have a couple items of interest that don’t relate to hang gliding products. ••• In the December ’97 issue I wrote about industry leader, Ken Brown. The story mentioned Ken’s employer, a man named Jim Lee, who was killed in an ultralight accident. I didn’t focus on Lee as the story was about Brown. However, perhaps I should’ve spelled it out. Some readers thought I meant Jim Lee, the highly ranked hang glider pilot. THIS IS NOT TRUE. I wrote that the other Jim Lee was an ultralight developer based in the East, while hang glider Jim Lee is not involved with ultralights and lives in the west. Some pilots read the story in December and erroneously put that news together with a reported death at the World Meet in Australia in January, concluding that Jim Lee the hang glider pilot had lost his life.
Product Lines – January 1998
ST. PAUL, MINN. — A couple months ago, this entire column focused on D-Cell gliders. Now a new story seems to be emerging, even in the depths of a cold winter. The operative words in the story are: Tow Airparks. Actually, several terms are used to describe these flying places, but nothing obscures the trend of more and more dedicated places where towing occurs. I view this as a tremendously good thing as it makes hang glider far more available than mountain-based flying alone can. ••• Of course, we’re all familiar with the big Florida tow airparks Wallaby and Quest plus Gregg McNamee’s operation. And most of you know Lookout Mountain offers aero towing. Over on the coast John Harris’ Kitty Hawk Kites doesn’t miss a trick, offering their own tow operation at the nearby Currituck County Airport. Just north of Chicago in southern Wisconsin is Brad Kushner’s enterprise. "He’s now grown to 150 members and four Dragonfly tugs!" reports Doug Johnson of Duluth, Minnesota.
Product Lines – December 1997
ST. PAUL, MINN. — Can you believe another year is about to slip away? Sure seemed to fly by to me. I’ll bet the same is true for Ken Brown. He’s had quite a year since about this time last fall when we discussed activities at Pacific Airwave. ••• As you are all aware now, the Salinas company became history shortly after that conversation in late 1996. By the Sun ‘n Fun airshow in Florida last April, Ken was working with Jim Lee, a producer of float-equipped trikes. It looked like a great business opportunity, putting Lee’s expanding business together with Ken’s experience in wing making. (Smaller trike builders often buy wings from other suppliers for trike carriages they manufacture themselves.) • However, Lee was tragically killed while flying a modified ultralight-type aircraft at Sun ‘n Fun. Ken’s future with Jim’s company faded quickly for reasons beyond his control. • After more adjustments, Brown has landed what appears (to me) to be another excellent chance to stay in the fly biz.
Product Lines – July 1997
DUNLAP, TENN. — Back in the Chattanooga area and up at Henson Gap for Memorial Day weekend, I was hoping to do a lot of soaring on the newly completed Cumulus motorglider. However, with only one day remaining, a stationary weather system was foiling those plans. Meanwhile I had some time to put out another "Product Lines." So, on with the news, as promised last month. ••• First off, congratulations are deserved for friend and fellow USHGA Board of Director member, Pete Lehmann. He can now claim he flew the longest flight in the east, no slight feat after worthy accomplishments in the past. Previous marks had been held by Mike Neuman (135 mile Penn. state record), the more difficult 157 mile East Coast Record by Tony Smolder, and the east of the Mississippi record by Larry Bunner (178 miles). Pete managed an excellent 182 miles on May 7th. He’s already written an interesting account of the accomplishment but I wanted to add my appreciation of fine flying by an excellent pilot.
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