2009 US Paragliding Nationals

[LE Herrick]

The competition committee ended at 7:30pm after going about 4 hours. It all came down to a pivotal decision by Mike Healy. I made a motion to have only one paragliding nationals. If that motion passed it would have awarded the paragliding national to Dunlap. Dunlap is really cool. They recently made massive bulldozer improvements on the launch and it is fast becoming one of the premier paragliding sites in the U.S. It is located about an hour out side of Fresno and is adjacent to a National Park.

My motion was defeated but only after a bizarre series of events. The first general discussion was Rob Spore’s idea that we just go ahead and have two paragliding nations, because it looked as if there were going to be two hang gliding nationals.

Two sites submitted applications for the 2009 Hang Gliding Nationals. King Mountain and Big Springs. David Glover was the champion for big Springs and he had lobbied extensively to the issue. However, the Big Springs Application was not very well prepared-- several errors and a sketchy discussion.

Big Springs is good in a lot of ways. It is a race to goal. Comp pilots are accustomed to racing and that is the way they train and compete internationally. So that was good. But the program for King Mountain was excellent. The package would have resulted in a world class event. It would also be a great follow up to the last summers PBS special that was filmed there.

King also had some very good sponsors lined up and some promising leads to stories in adventure magazines like National Geographic Adventure. USHPA has just hired a new PR guy Steve.

This momentum would be really cool. King Mountain would be an open distance contest. It was also a lot cheaper. The King Mountain proposal will cost the pilots $150. Big Springs $350 plus $298 in tow fees and that is only if the price of gas stays the same as it is now. If gas goes up the tow fees will go up.

However because one was tow and the other foot, the event sponsors worked out an agreement and the board approved having two HG nationals, subject to approval by the King Mountain Club.

The points from each comp would be compiled to give a score to the rankings. Now that the hang gliders had two comps, Rob Spore wanted the same for the paragliders.

I thought that was a good idea, but we having a project underway to revise the Completion Rulebook. Conversion to a series of events is central to the revision The events would each give ranking points, sort of like bull riding. The national champion selection based on a compilation. I thought the development should compile before we implement.


The vote was 4 to 4 and Mike Haley, as the Chair had to cast the tie breaker. Mike decided we should talk about the issues some more. Other directors came into the meeting as their meetings had ended. After talking about it some more another vote was called and it went 5 to 5. Mike cast his vote for the two comps for pg.

One comp will be at Dunlap, CA and one at Inspo UT. The Dunlap is April 26 – May 3 and Inspo will be Aug 15-22. The big job now will be to make sure that we have the rules in place for these comps.

The Draft rulebook was presented at the board meeting. The next step will be to correct some minor discrepancies identified during the meeting and send it out for further participant comment. I will let you know when it becomes available.


L.E. Herrick, Director
Region Nine

October 24, 2008
USHPA Board of Directors Meeting
Chattanooga TN

[LE Herrick]

Greetings -

I wrote that I was not a memebr of the redevelopment group, but that may not be true any more. Yesterday, an e mail went out to me and several other people asking for participation. I said I would help where I could.

Although I do not have comp credentials. I do have many years of regulatory development, I hope I can contribute to the over all sucess of this. I have offerd to help coordinate and organize the member comments to the draft.

LE Herrick