Oz Report

New South American record

record

Sec.  Olympio «olympio» writes:

Brazilian pilot Luiz Fernando Dias established a new hang gliding South American open distance record, beating the previous mark (by Mario Alonzi - 432 km) by about 5km. The flight was done in a little less than 9 hours (with take-off at 08h20). Departure point was Patu (Rio Grande do Norte) and landing Buriti dos Montes (Piauí).

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World Wide Site Guide

PG

Gerry has added a Google Maps version of the World Wide Hang Gliding and Paragliding Site Guide.  We are currently beta testing it here: https://ozreport.com/sitesmap.php.

You can see a picture of it here: https://ozreport.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=999. You can also report problems there.

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Scooter and stationary winch based instruction

cart|PG|scooter tow|Stuart Caruk|USHGA

https://ozreport.com/hgdealers.php

Stuart Caruk «stucaruk» writes:

I'm a USHGA tow supervisor and instructor.  I use towing almost exclusively as a training method.  I've trained paraglider pilots using scooter tows we used to make and sell from our shop.  We actually built and sold twenty one of them worldwide before it became to much of a hassle sourcing scooters and parts, and none of them exactly matched the previous version.

Once we redesigned Ed Pittman's payout winch, we set it into a semi assembly line style production, and we have sold just shy of 100 units worldwide.  It's built to perform rigorous towing day after day with little maintenance, and we often do 24+ tows or back to back tandem tows in a day.  I wouldn't say we build the most winches, but I'm betting I'm one of the few with CNC Plasma cutters, CNC lathes, and CNC mills in house to help produce the components.  We just added a robotic welder to help improve our production to boot.

We also manufacture the www.TowMeUp.com split apart style tow bridle, and tree extraction device that we designed.  My focus is on opening up over the water training to all paraglider pilots, and I'm building a small fleet of jet boats with integrated winches to make available on lease throughout the country.  An Aluminum hulled jet boat, virtually eliminates the hassles of boat towing with fiberglass hulls and props.

My passion is paragliders, but we have done many hang glider tows in the past, with pilots who can foot launch well.  This is actually where we designed the double trigger soft style hang glider tow bridle that many pilots requested we make available.

We specialize in hydraulic winches, but if a person has a need, we can help fix most any style system, or fabricate parts no longer available.  We don't discriminate, we even help plumbers ;-) Truth be told, if the local hang glider pilots expressed an interest, I'd build a boat with a launch platform for hang glider pilots.

I started out my aviation career on a homebuilt Rogello funky version of the Bamboo Bomber.  Self, taught, since there weren't many instructors around back then.  Crashed a lot, flew a bit, went on to bigger things before going back to the basics.  Now I'm just to lazy to cart a glider to the top of a hill, preferring a bag wing for it's simplicity.  Towing off a boat with a hang glider has always intrigued me though.  Someday if I find a big enough glider and small enough instructor I'll give it a try.

We spend a fair amount of time training pilots to tow launch, and we train a bunch of tow techs.  In fact it's my belief that all those who own winches should be trained to the level of tow administrator so they can sign off tow launch skills, and tow techs.

We train mostly over the water with boat towing.  I used to be a fond advocate of scooter towing, but once I discovered hydraulic winches, I'd never use such a sketchy system again.  Our winch works way better than a scooter tow in the Payin mode, with tension control automatic.  It's easy to balance the rewind and tow force to essentially static tow, or we can Payout tow as well.  Often when lake towing we switch back and forth between Payout, static and Payin on the fly.  It's totally seamless as far as the pilot is concerned, but it's very versatile.

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Top Landing at Marshall

https://ozreport.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=817&start=22

Discuss Fly on the Wall at the Oz Report forum

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A.I.R. ATOS VR|Neville Almond

AIR ATOS VR

Neville Almond «n_almond» writes:

Well, I've taken your advice and pick up a VR next week (well before next May - you suggested I'd need three months and not three days to get used to it!)

I flew my V against the VR back in late Sept in marginal conditions, and the sink rate just blew my V away (and my V normally blows everything else on the hill away!). After watching the VR climb thru me time and time again it was the only way to put my nightmares to rest!

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Accident statistics

forum

https://ozreport.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=976

Discuss accident at the Oz Report forum

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More on Compact Payout Winches

PG

http://paraglidingforum.com/viewtopic.php?t=3461&highlight=

Lots of good links and good information here.

Discuss winches at the Oz Report forum

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Oz Report wiki

scooter tow

https://ozreport.wikispaces.com/

The idea is that we can have specific documents that are long lasting and reflect the best thinking of the hang gliding community.  At the moment I have started up documents about scooter towing, tandem aerotowing, towing, and early hang gliding.

Anyone can freeing edit the documents without any permissions from me. See here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wiki

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Extreme Sports Travel Insurance

Derek Patterson|extreme sports|insurance|travel

http://www.eglobalhealth.com/patriot_extreme_insurance.html

Derek Patterson, President eGlobalHealth Insurers Agency, LLC writes:

First I would recommend for the Australian hang gliding trip a product called Liaison International with the Sport Rider (to cover hang gliding). This product is by Specialty Risk International and will cover an individual only while outside their country of primary residence.  Visit our special link here to run an instant online quote and to apply and purchase the plan if you require.

Alternatively (or in addition to the above), we offer a Medical EVAC membership program called MedJet Assist -- the world's premier medical evac program underwritten by certain underwriters with Lloyds of London.  You can learn more about this membership program here.

Note that this program is only for US and Canadian citizens and will cover you both domestically in the US and internationally (with limitations depending on the plan you choose). You will want to visit our link noted above and review MedJet's program called the Regular Annual plan.  Note that this plan can also be quoted and purchased online as well.

Many people will have the MedJet Assist program as a year around base plan that they always have and then purchase a supplemental medical insurance plan for international exposures.  Keep in mind the MedJet Assist program is not insurance, but a membership program that affords its members treatment worldwide evac with no deductible and no other cost than just the annual membership plan premium.  It only pays for medical care for an evacuation and not inpatient medical care, thus the reason why most will also purchase the international coverage for the medical insurance benefit.

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Judy Leyden

http://airways-airsports.com/ 

Discuss England at the Oz Report forum

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Connecticut Site

Google Earth|World Wide Site Guide

World Wide Site Guide (through Google Earth)

https://ozreport.com/data/kmz/TalcottMountain.kmz

Williams, Deane «deane.williams» sends:

Talcott Mountain, Simsbury, CT

650 foot WNW face, cliff launch sign off required, no PG possible.

Connecticut Hang Gliding Assn.  Http://www.geocities.com/chga_1999/index.html

How to send in a site:

Discuss sites at the Oz Report forum

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Vista Point

PG|Tad Hurst

Tad Hurst «THurst» writes:

It was not one person involved with the Vista-point/Palm Desert issue.  We had about 65 pilots attend a meeting of the Santa Rosa and San Jacinto National Monument Advisory Committee (MAC). The chair of that committee was Bufford Crites, who is also the mayor of Palm Desert.

http://www.cityofpalmdesert.org/content/Minutes_1335.PDF

I personally presented to the group our position on Vista Point.  Mike Hiberarth, few other key pilots, and I have met with the officials from the BLM and NFS to find a potential alternate site.  There is a proposed site on Santa Rosa.  It will take a while before this can possibly come to fruition, but it is in the works.

In addition, the MAC has now recommended that hang gliding be once again allowed at Vista Point.  This is not a done deal, either, but it is a very good step.

Also, the city of Palm Desert voted to allow hang glider and paraglider landings in public parks (http://www.cityofpalmdesert.org/PR_HommeAdams.asp), and after some study, selected an individual park as the preferred target.  One of the members of our team (Scotty Farnsworth) has acted as the point person in dealing with the city of Palm Desert in this issue.

A few of the team members have looked at the park, and found it to be marginally usable for hang gliding landings.  In truth, if you can get to the specified park, you can also probably land at about 1000 other places to land in Palm Desert.  The members of the team considered this park a moral victory more than an actual LZ victory.

We do have a useable LZ in Palm Desert - the water-tank LZ. We do not currently have a launch (well we really do - there is a piece of private land just above Vista Point that was been used - not by a lot of people).

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Report from France

Alessandro "Alex" Ploner|Jim Lamb

Jim Lamb «jlamb» writes:

Karen and I are still in France, sitting on the bench waiting for our first chance to get in the sport of car burning.  Perhaps a nice Smart Car, something small to start with.

I had a good time there, one day at the 'AIR factory', and three days in the Dolomites.  We flew two, one with Alex Ploner and the other with three of the German team members.

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2005 Gulgong Classic

Gulgong Classic 2005|William "Billo" Olive

Billo writes:

SA/AG (Skysailor) and the HGFA website published dates for the Airborne Gulgong classic competition are incorrect.  The competition website dates are correct.  http://www.gulgongclassic.com. The dates are the 21^st to the 26^th of November.  Monday the 21^st is a comp day, not a practice day.

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Nor Cal Aero Club

Ken Brown

www.NorCalAeroClub.com

Ken Brown at Sportwings «sportwings» is back near Dixon, California (west of Scramento) for a couple of weekends of aerotowing:

Ready to go flying?  Nor Cal Aero Club will be setting up for complete Aerotow flight park services for the next two weekends starting on Friday, November the 11^th with an Aerotow clinic and again on Friday, November 18^th with yet another Aerotow clinic.

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Oz hang gliding videos

Base Productions|Jay Longden|video

Jay Longden at Cloud Base Productions «info» writes:

Jon Durand and I have started to compile short video samples on our web site.  View them here.

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Pliable Moose

Mark "Forger" Stucky

Mark Stucky «markstucky» sends in this brochure:

Click above to see a much bigger version

Click here to see the front of the brochure.

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