Scott Trueblood writes:

I share your sentiments regarding scooter towing. It is not only a great method for rank beginners but a good way to fill in the gaps which other methods of instruction leave, such as aerotow-only pilots lack of experience with foot launches and landings.

This is why I am presently involved with opening a scooter tow operation here in south Florida. My partner in this venture is Robert Hedden, another Florida Ridge-based flier, and we are assembling all the parts and pieces as we speak (er, type). We are starting with a 50cc scooter and a 330 Condor, and plan to add more gliders as soon as feasible. Everything we need has been ordered, and we are doing everything strictly by the book as Steve Wendt and Mike Meier have written it.

Robert and I both attended Steve's clinic here at the FL Ridge in April (you watched a little of it), and we both got considerable practice at both running the scooter and flying several different gliders with it. I've never seen a group of Hang 4s having so much fun flying within three feet of the ground except during a speed gliding contest.

This is why I wrote to you a couple of days ago wondering about the insurance issues. I really believe that basic instruction needs to be a bit more rigidly standardized if we expect our insurance to do much good in the event of a lawsuit. All the different methods can still utilize many of the same basic skill sets which need to be signed off, item by item.

Currently, Jay Scovill has taken it upon himself to write a new, more user-friendly and somewhat condensed beginner's manual. He did me the great courtesy of forwarding me a draft to review, and it is for the most part excellent. His experience as a motorcycle safety training instructor really shows in his approach to hang gliding.

I've been shouting from the rooftops for years now that the USHPA has much to learn from other sports which have undergone similar crises and survived. My experience as a dive instructor has changed my view of the standards of hang gliding instruction. Much of the hang gliding instruction I see is pretty loose by dive instruction standards. Diving is no more deadly serious than hang gliding, why the difference?

Part of the problem as I see it is that many hang gliding operations have more or less developed their own set of methods which loosely follow the USHPA Pilot Proficiency Program. They each operate in their own microcosm and get little feedback from students or from the other flight operations. In my perception, the farthest removed from the whole process is USHPA. Other than processing ratings, I don't think USHPA really has a grip on what all the different instructors and schools are doing. Maybe I am wrong.

As a PADI instructor, roughly every fifth recipient of your certification also receives a questionnaire from PADI relevant to their level of training. Every aspect of the instruction received is covered including knowledge development, maximum depths, skills learned, overall impression, etc. This generally all goes into each instructor's file and will never see the light of day except during a....you guessed it...LAWSUIT. They happen all the time in diving, and PADI is 100% successful in defense of cases where they can show the instructor was teaching according to PADI standards.

Once, weeks after issuing an Advanced Open Water certification to a very capable and deserving student, I received a letter from PADI calling me out on the mat as to why I took this student to 104 feet max depth on a training dive, when the max allowable depth is 100'. Boy did I have so 'splainin to do...! Those questionnaires really work. (The student had been to 130'+ on his own on numerous occasions before taking his advanced class).

Implementing a better and more standardized system of instruction into a 30 year old institution such as ours may be about as easy as imposing democracy at gunpoint onto the tribal society of Iraq, but it might make more sense.

I wish Scott and Robert (and Jay) every success in their operation. I agree completely with the statements made above. I would like all hang gliding instruction to meet the Steve Wendt baseline of safety and repeatedly practice to condition the body to learn the skills. Without this practice (which very very few of us had during our instruction period) pilots do not gain the necessary skills. No wonder we have a large drop out rate after the hang 2 rating.

Regarding the USHPA, if the safety and training committee is still under the auspices of its long time chairman, you can expect little to nothing from them. He was in the past virulently anti-Steve Wendt. Besides, what can an organization do that relies on its volunteers to do the work and is only meeting/working twice a year, for a total of four days a year?

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