Some hang gliding manufacturers sell only through dealers that provide hang gliding instruction. Their gliders aren't available from any other sources. Dealers/instructors supplement their usually meager income (as they can't charge enough for instruction to actually make a living at it) by selling equipment to their students. By selling at the manufacturer's list price they have an opportunity to make enough money to sustain their operation.

Can this business model actually work? Does it rely too much on "hidden" subsidies? Does it run counter to human nature (or at least the American version of human nature that forgoes community good for individual benefit)?

Rob McKenzie is a successful hang gliding instructor in LA (www.flytandem.com) but as we saw in a previous Oz Report issue, he sells Wills Wing hang gliders at a substantial discount to anyone who will come to the Andy Jackson Flight Park and pick up one that he has in inventory. That's another business model.

Then there is the Lookout Mountain business model that builds a strong hang gliding community that pays full retail for hang gliders. Perhaps they are just isolated enough to be able to support that kind of operation, while there are at least two strong hang gliding schools in the Los Angeles area.

How should hang instruction be paid for? Obviously getting someone into the sport provides income to the instructor, dealer, manufacturer, USHPA, flight park owners, clubs, etc. So it is worth it to ease the cost of getting into the sport. But instructors only recapture the true cost of instruction if they can continue to sell gliders to the students as they progress.

And if used gliders aren't sold through instructors but rather directly or through on-line sites like the Oz Report classifieds (or the USHPA classifieds) then how are instructors (who can check the gliders and only sell them to qualified buyers) going to prosper?

A recent US Supreme court ruling gives manufacturers the power to set and enforce their list prices at the dealership level if they so desire.