For me, personally, the USHPA works great. I have excellent
interactions with Beth Van Eaton regarding all my competition requirements. I
work with volunteer Mitch Shipley on the Tow Device Supplement Applications, but
then he lives at Wilotree Park part time. I send our competition results in to
volunteer David Wheeler. Volunteer Jamie Shelden contacts me regarding
membership on the national team.

The incident report system is up and running. It's easy to renew my membership.
Same for Belinda's family membership. We, obviously, have very specialized needs
when it comes to dealing with the USHPA.

But the bigger concerns are with both the short and long term health of hang
gliding and our association Steve Pearson has some concerns about how the USHPA
is handling these bigger concerns. He writes:

1) There has been an extraordinary amount of discussion and good
ideas shared over the last 20 years. (2) These ideas and efforts have been
ineffective at arresting the decline of hang gliding.

I would argue that there is no recipe that the USHPA can conceive of that is
likely to be adopted and implemented by, or even that is even helpful to a
successful school. That’s not to say that the ideas are flawed, but that they
are in conflict with our experience. Make a list of the top schools in the last
45 years—KHK, Lookout, Windsports, Mission, Morningside, Wallaby, etc. and ask
if any of them would have been receptive to adopting a USHPA business plan for
managing their business. Every school and community is unique—what works in
Kitty Hawk is different from Morningside, LA, Chattanooga and San Francisco. The
ideas that have been shared are a great resource for schools to consider for
business development, but they are not a stand-alone solution.

I’m suggesting that revisiting this subject with clean whiteboards and new
participants is unlikely to do any better—we are looking at this from the wrong
perspective. It’s like trying to push a rope uphill—forcing top-down management
on a system that doesn’t respond to that approach.

Let’s recognize that new pilots only come from flight schools (rather than
marketing programs). That the root of our problem is that sustaining a
flight school is near impossible, and compliance with the rules, regulations and
expenses imposed by the USHPA is a significant burden. And ultimately, the only
mechanism for stabilizing hang gliding is to make teaching both easier and more
rewarding.

There are a couple of familiar refrains that we need to address head-on: (1)
commercial interests are in conflict with the best interests of the association
and (2) ideas for promoting growth are too expensive or otherwise subordinate to
other priorities.

1. There is a direct and immutable correlation between the health, safety and
vitality of every hang gliding community and the status of the local flight
school. When flight schools close, even thriving communities of pilots diminish
within a few short years. I can’t even think of any exceptions to this. Schools,
more than any other factor, are the foundation of our association and we need to
stop seeing them as beneficiaries and sources of revenue. We should be
supporting them, not taxing them.

2. How can we pretend to have be successful association with unrelenting
declining membership? Membership is the only product that the USHPA sells, and
all of the associated services are to support membership. We could argue that
there are a lot of metrics to evaluate the performance of a business, but I
can’t imagine not including product sales. Most successful and sustainable
businesses invest the majority of their discretionary resources in product
development and those who don’t more-often fail. That’s not to say that
investing in product development is any guarantee, just a fundamental
requirement.

Why don’t we try something different, like investing in and listening to
individuals who have demonstrated aptitude and commitment to achieving our
goals? Instead of analyzing and dictating the minutia of how to run a successful
flight school, why not ask our instructors, “what can we do to help?” What
incentives (product and services) can we offer to achieve the outcome we want
(growth and pilot retention)?

What specific actions can the USHPA implement develop hang gliding, i.e. to
support schools ?

1) Provide financial incentives for the development of new pilots. I’m
suggesting that a program like rebating the entire 1st year membership fee, and
50% of the second year would relatively increase membership and long-term income
for the USHPA. It would also focus the efforts of schools on making pilots
rather than other income opportunities like tandem rides.

2) Mandate a reduction in the administrative burden of PASA/RRRG compliance.

3)  Reduce the instructor fee, and perhaps even make the first year free.

4) Provide funds and support for instructor clinics rather than requiring
participant to organize and pay for them. Wills Wing did this for years—we paid
for Tim Morely, Jim Shaw and others to give clinics around the country. More
flight schools = more pilots = more glider sales.

5) Reduce the administrative costs and requirements for sanction competitions.

6) Eliminate all fees and requirements for local chapters to hold fly-ins and
other community events.

I don’t mean this to be an exhaustive list, just the first things that occurred
to me. Certainly we can do better than this?

Finally, these new policies don’t address the structural problems with hang
gliding like how long it takes to learn, or the physical requirements, or the
inconvenience of carrying and storing bulky equipment. That’s for us to solve.