Hang gliding in Rio can be an exhilarating experience for both
pilots and tourists - where else in the world can you take off in the middle of
a big city, fly over the largest urban forest in the world and such beautiful
and landmarks? Flights from Sao Conrado to the Christ statue and the Tijuca peak
are the standard goals when the weather helps, but now the goal seems to have
shifted somewhat. Long distance flying starting from a coastal site is not that
usual, at least in this part of Brazil where the winds are typically not strong.
Sunday morning conditions looked promising for the "run of the mill" good
flight, so I took off at 08:30 and was headed to the Christ and Tijuca peaks!
After hanging around with some fellow pilots at the Tijuca peak, we started a
flying downwind. Let's see how far we can go! Two weeks ago the bar for cross
country starting from Pedra Bonita was raised from just over 20km to 56 km by
Nader Couri. The same Nader was now flying with me over the previous route.
Click above for larger version.
The weather was not perfect, some inversion was present and only a small amount
of clouds popped up - no streeting, but also very little shade! After some three
hours flying in the direction of Angra dos Reis, both of us ended up landing at
Portobello after an 87km cross country by the sea side, granting spectacular
views of the many bays that connect Rio and Angra. Cloud base was at 1500
meters.
Just imagine what can be accomplished on a day with higher cloud base and some
streeting?
The other day
http://OzReport.com/9.243#0 I complained about the (unknown) meaning of
"creating an account" on Mark Dowsett's web site when you register for the US
Nationals. To me this is what you do at a bank or at PayPal. An account is where
you store money.
I got Mark to clarify his wording so that now you become a registered user of
his site when you register for the US Nationals and you can become a registered
user in advance making it a one click operation to register for the US Nationals
on the 15th at 9 AM PST.
<start disclaimer> Note that I am NOT an attorney, or an
insurance agent, and my understanding could be wrong. Consult a qualified legal
professional if you want legal advice. <end disclaimer>
There has been some recent discussion about ratings and insurance coverage, and
concern on the part of some that having members without pilot ratings could put
our insurance at risk in some way. I'd previously said in email that we could
develop linkages between our insurance and our rating system, though we don't do
that right now. I've now learned more about liability, ratings and insurance,
and here's what I believe to be true based on my present knowledge.
We have the ability, if we choose to, to require a rating or other qualification
for insurance. We do not choose to do so, because the requirement of having a
rating pulls our rating programs into play as another element in potential
litigation. The advice of our attorney, who defends us and advises our insurers,
is that the risk exposure related to requiring a rating as a precondition for
insurance is greater than the exposure posed by pilots who don't carry a rating.
Not requiring a rating is the minimum-risk choice, from the standpoint of
reducing insurance claims exposure.
Our fundamental goal with insurance is to provide our members and landowners
with insurance coverage at an affordable price. To this end, we analyze risk and
benefit from the coverages that we provide. We may adjust those coverages as
needed to minimize our exposure, while still providing members with the
coverages that they need. Sometimes we have to make choices that are
unpalatable; instructor insurance, for example. We don't insure paid instruction
(or indeed, any activity where an exchange of value takes place) because the
claims history of such activity has been very poor. We only insure recreational
flying at present, and that would include instruction only when there is no
exchange of value taking place. If you take money for instruction, even to cover
expenses, then it becomes a non-covered activity. And it's the activity itself
that's not covered; no matter how you slice it, if there's a payment made and
instruction associated with it, then it's "commercial instruction" from our
insurer's perspective, and it's not a covered risk. This includes instructor
co-ops, membership-fee-based-clubs that offer "free" training after payment of
an initiation fee, "guide services" or any other arrangement that's been tried.
If a rating was required for insurance coverage, and a claim was later filed,
then USHGA could be held liable under a theory of "inadequate instruction", for
example. By making insurance solely a function of membership, we remove that
exposure. USHGA does not provide instruction, nor does it sell gliders or flight
equipment. (We do sell some videos, books and ancillary "stuff", but we don't
sell flying gear.) This too limits our exposure to insurance risk.
One of the terms you learn about in insurance is "loss ratio". That's the ratio
of money paid in premiums to claims paid out. If the loss ratio is low, then
your premiums stay low too. If you have one bad year, but you've got a good
long-term relationship with your insurer, that alone isn't going to jack up the
rates. But a pattern of several bad years in succession will likely kick up the
rate. We've seen our premiums double, as was the case in 1995 after bad years in
1990, 1992 and 1993. The worst of those large claims was a suit for slander in a
club newsletter which was settled for a substantial amount. We have since
rewritten the policy language to exclude slander/libel coverage for clubs,
reserving that solely for USHGA. That's an example of managing our risk exposure
by adjusting our insurance policy coverage. The rest of the big claims were ones
that we couldn't exclude from the policy; hang gliders running into spectator's
heads. We don't cover commercial instruction for this same reason; the
historical loss ratio is so high that it drives the premium out of reach. Some
associations in other countries have offered this coverage, but they're having
to cut or greatly curtail it in order to keep their insurance programs for
recreational flying.
In recent years we've seen loss ratios below 10%, and that's kept our premiums
stable. We've seen ratios as bad as 255% in the past, though generally that's
not the case. But sudden, catastrophic losses are why we carry insurance in the
first place, and that's why we pay over a hundred grand annually for a premium.
We carry a million dollars worth of coverage per incident, and we hope it will
never be needed. But it's there, if the worst happens.
I haven't seen any evidence to suggest that unrated pilots are having more
accidents that result in claims, than pilots who have ratings. We can speculate
on whether it might be true, but I'm aware of no evidence to support such a
conclusion.
Which brings us back to powered harnesses and insurance. The loss ratio for them
to date is good; so far as I've seen, we haven't yet paid a claim related to a
powered harness. If we decide to adopt changes which clearly provide for powered
harness services (including insurance) then we'll modify our policy to cover
powered harnesses as we understand them to be. (That is, not attached to the
airframe, foot launched, launch assist devices.)
If it turns out that the worst fears of a few are true, and we begin to see an
unreasonable level of claims related to powered harnesses, then we'll modify the
coverage as needed to exclude those models or types with an unacceptable loss
ratio. We can do that by amending the policy and filing it with our insurers,
and such changes are typically implemented at renewal time. We have no evidence
to show that these "worst fears" are true, but if they are we can deal with that
administratively.
In answer to a question regarding whether the USHGA has excluded earlier
"problem" gliders, the answer is no, as far as I can tell. But these are gliders
from the very early days, before we had a liability insurance policy. And even
if we'd had one, a divergent glider doesn't pose an additional third party risk.
It's a risk to the pilot himself, which is not a risk exposure that we insure.
There are many different kinds of risk. We only insure the risk that comes from
our potential to damage other people or their property. Medical bills, pilot
injuries, glider damage, equipment theft and so on are not covered. We used to
have glider theft insurance, but we dropped the coverage (once again) after the
measured loss ratio exceeded a reasonable level.
As USHGA administrators, the BOD and staff work to keep our insurance coverage
affordable, while protecting pilots for recreational flying risks. This keeps
sites open and allows us all access to the lands we need to fly. We work to
minimize threats to our continued insurance coverage, by limiting the policy to
those risks that affect our members' access to sites. Sometimes the decisions we
have to make seem a little strange, but you have to keep in mind that we're
operating within a litigious society, and civil liability law isn't always as
clear-cut as you might hope. In keeping with that, let me remind you in closing
that I am not a lawyer or an insurance agent, and anything I've said here could
be completely wrong. If you need legal advice or insurance advice, you should
contact a legal or insurance professional. (So don't sue me, ok? :-) )
Discuss third party liability insurance at the Oz Report forum
Ever wanted a quality piece of Hang Gliding jewellery? Check out
this link here. Other
items are soon to follow, like vario pendants, windsocks, airfoil babse bars,
pilot in harness and if we get enough response, maybe even a paraglider. All
items are professionally crafted by a hang glider pilot so no goofy looking
wings here folks. Individual items also can be made upon request, just send
pictures of the item required and it can be done, price on request.
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