Richard Heckman <>
writes:

POWERED HARNESS TASK FORCE


REPORT


The Powered Harness Task Force (PHTF) was formed at the request of President
Lisa Tate late in 2005 to obtain information for the Board of Directors(BOD)
that would allow it to understand all ramifications of including powered
harnesses (PH). The Task Force was to prepare 3 scenarios: Full implementation
of all PH and programs for them, No PH at all and a Compromise PH position. Bill
Bolosky accepted the Chairmanship.


The initial action by the PHTF was to gather all pertinent questions that the
members felt needed to be asked; primarily legal and insurance questions. These
questions were forwarded to Chairman Bolosky. It was determined that the best
course of action would be to work with a disinterested legal source and the firm
of Silk, Adler and Colvin, an internationally recognized firm specializing in
non-profit corporation law, was retained. They were asked to review our AOI and
provide recommendations in view of a possible membership vote on including PH in
our association


At the Spring BOD meeting Bill Bolosky presented Silk, Adler's results. They
stated that our AOI were ambiguous and subject to interpretation. They
recommended that we clarify our primary purpose as stated in our AOI prior to
proceeding with any change in direction of the organization. Clarification
options could be very expensive. On the question of interpretation of the
existing AOI wording they stated that "Current, long standing practice and
understanding" would have significant weight in court. In addition, they stated
that if there were a change in the primary purpose of the organization, "assets
of the Association prior to the amendment would be impressed and could only be
used for the purpose of the pre-amendment Articles of the Association".


Silk,Adler also addressed the the issue of secondary purposes. They indicated
that precedent indicated that secondary purposes could go as high as 15% but
that prudence recommended that we not go above 10% if we wanted to avoid
challenges. They also indicated that all programs that did not directly support
our primary purpose would contribute to that 10% and the contribution could be
in "dollars, volunteer hours, BOD attention, etc".


The BOD then directed the PHTF to investigate whether any PH programs could be
implemented within the 10% rule. We then generated some additional questions
that were given to Bill. About this time, Bill became very tied up with his main
job and Dick Heckman was asked to complete the PHTF work. The questions were
reviewed one more time and sent to Tim Herr, our corporate attorney, First
Flight Insurance, our insurer, and Silk, Adler. Silk, Adler was asked to review
our operations to determine how much room we had to pursue other activities.
First Flight was asked for their opinion on the differences in operational
characteristics between PH and nonpowered gliders and whether it would be
possible to insure PH separately from our existing nonpowered insurance. Tim
Herr was asked if it were possible to require nonpowered experience prior to
offering PH insurance.


Answers were received from the above fairly recently. Silk, Adler has stated
that to do the job properly, they would need to review all our operations in
detail and that it would take some time. Their estimate to do the job properly
would be about $30,000. That would include further analysis of our internal
operating methods, our AOI and Bylaws. Tim Herr's opinion states that any
experience requirement for a person to be insured opens us to additional
liability and recommends against it. First Flight stated that they had no
opinion on whether the go around capability of PH was safer and that it would be
possible to insure PH separately from unpowered gliders. On all other questions,
they deferred to us.


WHERE DO WE STAND NOW


AOI clarification would be expensive. Although the AOI are vague, the precedent
of our 30+ years of managing unpowered flight and our refusal to include power
when the subject came up earlier would be significant to any court. Proceeding
to include PH without clarifying the AOI would invite lawsuit. Changing the
primary purpose in the AOI would essentially freeze the assets of the
Association.


PH are powered ultralites. Their range is limited only by fuel capacity. They
don't require our somewhat specialized sites to launch. Because they don't have
to use our sites, they don't need our ratings or it's system of instruction to
fly. We, as an organization, have no control over them. Because the prime
reasons given for PH is lack of flying sites and ease of use, we can expect that
PH in general will have more interaction with the general public because of
takeoff sites closer to civilization than unpowered gliders have to date. That
means higher potential for third party accidents.


Tim Herr has indicated in the past that our ratings and instructor certification
programs open us to liability. Adding instructional or ratings programs for PH
would just add additional sources for liability. Although there may be some
within the organization that have experience with PH, as an organization we
presently have no experience or capability to administer those programs and it
will take time and resources to gain that expertise. Until we gain recognized
expertise, although I'm no lawyer, I would expect that we would be open to
liability in that regard.


At this time, any PH programs would just drain resources from present programs.


The question has been asked in the past, " Why don't we include PH like the SSA
includes motorgliders". Fair question. The SSA accepts the motorglider
association as a division of SSA. That means that they get 1 free page of
advertising in Soaring per year. Other than that, they are a separate
corporation with a separate BOD.


RECOMMENDATIONS


No PH programs. If recognition of PH capability becomes necessary in the future,
we should accept logbook endorsement by a PH dealer or manufacturer or some
other authority for such in the manner that the FAA does for similar purposes.


We cannot afford to put our existing unpowered insurance program in jeopardy
from individuals over which we have no control. If it can be determined that we
can create a separate PH insurance program that supports existing members and
avoids the insubstantiality question without creating further liability to the
Association, it can be considered in the future.