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The following is a critique of the presentation made to the USHPA BOD at the Fall 2008 BOD meeting by the Competition Workgroup. The presentation is found here:

http://www.ushpa.aero/documents/pres_comp_restructure_bod_fa08.pdf

Text from the presentation is in blue below. In black is the critique. Mike Haley (committee chair) Riss Estes, Connie Work, Paul Montville, Dennis Pagen, Rob Sporrer, and Lisa Tate are listed as the authors of the presentation.

You'll want to read along with the presentation document as you read the critique below.

Sanctioning Process Unstructured

Inconsistent quality leads to pilot disinterest. USPHA brand tarnished

While this is a power point presentation is is very unclear what the Workgroup is referring to here. I have gone to all the hang gliding competitions for years. Maybe there is some problem over in the paragliding world, but I have not seen inconsistently in quality in USHPA hang gliding competitions. In fact, I have seen very high quality.

I can't see how the USHPA brand (if it exists at all) has been tarnished by the USHPA sanctioned hang gliding competitions. Perhaps they could give some examples.

How is the sanctioning process unstructured? I'm sure that Liz Sharp would be surprised to hear this. What exactly is wrong with it and what are you proposing to fix that?

Applications due as much as eleven months before event. Undue burden on meet organizers.

Sure we could shorten the time frame, but some organizers can think eight months ahead of time, and you might want that for the Nationals. And we could do a lot to help meet organizers as I have pointed out. Why charge them a $500 fee for "late" applications?

No Support for Meet Organizers. Potential meet organizers daunted. No training readily available. Aspiring meet organizers under achieve. Meet organizer liability.

Yah, but then there is absolutely nothing in the plan from the Competition Workgroup to support meet organizers in the future. In fact, there is just a list of additional burdens for meet organizers. The plan doesn't address this issue at all. No training, no nothing.

Problematic Ranking/Validity System

• Meets are considered valid based on only the top 10 pilots attending.

Well this is just flat wrong (in the hang gliding world).

If the top pilots don’t come… –…the meet is devalued

• Devalued meets = low attendance = poor economics –…less knowledge transfer –…lesser pilots don’t get to fly with the “big guns”

As I have already pointed out, make each USHPA sanctioned hang gliding meet worth 600 points (with minimum attendance figure of twenty pilots for hang gliding).

Current system… –…open to manipulation –…alienates many members

The current system is not manipulated by hang glider pilots, although I have heard rumors that it is by paraglider pilots. Let's see the evidence among hang glider pilots that the current system alienates them. This again seems to be a paraglider pilot complaint.

Publish minimum standards for quality and safety

You mean like this one:

When required, the pilot and meet director shall have radios capable of transmitting on a common USHPA frequency unless alternative frequencies are unanimously agreed by the meet director and all participants.

We haven't used the USHPA frequencies in years. I could go into a long discourse on why this is a bad idea.

Later I will again go through the three pages of minimum safety and quality standards and critique them. I have no problem with having three pages that are reasonable, but I don't see that publishing these pages accomplishes much.

50-50 weighting of quality of pilot attending and quantity of pilots attending.

I have already shown that it is 70 - 30, quantity and quality in their proposal.

Enact new validity system for 2009.

Other than apparently the USHPA Competition Rulebook can only be changed at the Fall BOD meeting and apply for the next year, 2010, well, what the hell, let's just forget about the rules here and just go willy nilly ahead and make whatever changes we think are necessary. It is unclear what they mean by the validity system and how this is going to work.

This presentation looks to me to be a bamboozlement of the BOD. Very little of what is in the actual plan is presented here. There was no fair hearing of the plan by the BOD. Steve Kroop has already pointed out here in the Oz Report that he would not have voted for this plan to go ahead for review if he had seen it in advance.

The USHPA BOD works through committees. The plan was not presented to, discussed, nor voted on by the Competition Committee before it went before the whole BOD. This is not in line with the BOD procedures. It was rushed through without proper consideration.

I'll have much more to say about the plan and I will, of course, present an alternative plan in the coming issues of the Oz Report.