Wills Wing
Flytec

Oz Report

Volume 7, Number 262
9 am, Wednesday, October 8 2003

https://OzReport.com
"Toto, I have a feeling we're not in Kansas anymore."

to Table of Contentsto next topic In Oz⁣ it’s raining now

Wed, Oct 8 2003, 4:00:01 am EDT
Dalby, Bright and Mystic launch

Gilbert Griffith|PG|William "Billo" Olive|William Olive

Gilbert Griffith|PG|William "Billo" Olive|William Olive

Gilbert Griffith «gil» writes:

I don't know about up north as I haven't been away except a flight to Brisbane at 49,000 feet with cloud all the way a long way below us. Here in Bright and the Ovens/Kiewa Valleys it is green again and the grass is growing fast.  We have had plenty of rain but not up to flood levels (yet).

Drove up to Mystic for a "look" on Saturday where the PG school students were finishing off their week's course with a bit of ridge soaring.  Emily was working but only to 200 feet above launch.  A few of the locals flew across to the Gold Mine and may have been able to get to Harrietville in the light lift.  Some really nice clouds about.

Someone mentioned on launch that they are going to fully carpet the whole launch and setup area again this year, maybe a one-piece covering.  The wind had torn up a couple of pieces which I replaced but it's a bit patchy with edges that can catch PG strings.

Looks like I have sold my shop.  Not the business, just the block/building and land.  Don't know exactly what I'll do yet, maybe move the computers and radios (and maybe bikes) home and build an extension there.  I have 'till February.

(editor’s note: Gilbert’s shop has been a mecca in Bright, Victoria, Australia for hang gliding and paragliding pilots especially those interested in getting their radio’s fixed.  Gilbert could easily do this at his house two blocks up the street – 7 Church Street.)

Billo, william olive «william.olive» writes:

Another hang gliding comp, another drought breaker.  The Dalby aerotow comp had round one canned due to widespread rain in the afternoon.  Several pilots did tow and get up, but it rained on the airstrip and the majority didn't get the opportunity to launch.

As so often happens, the practice day was a beauty and hopes were high.

It is raining again this morning, and the airstrip is black soil, although if it does fine up( as is predicted) we can use the taxi ways.  I will try to upload results (and pictures) to the NHGC web page at www.nhgc.asn.au as the comp progresses.  Info on the Dalby club and the comp is available on their web site at www.geocities.com/sxtex.

(editor’s note: The Dalby tow meet happens right after the Canugra Classic.  It is a bit of the ways up north.)

Discuss "In Oz⁣ it’s raining now" at the Oz Report forum   link»

Wed, Oct 8 2003, 4:00:02 am EDT

to Table of Contentsto next topic Talon’s excel

Leonardo Dabbur|record|Wills Wing

Leonardo Dabbur «leodabbur» writes:

This weekend four Talons pilots set new XC records in Brazil (in Sao Paulo State).

Leonardo Dabbur Talon 150 - 294 km
Paulo Baz Talon 140 - 294 km
Lois Neubauer Talon 140 - 282 km
Nene Rotor Talon 140 - 244 km

At the 2003 Sao Paulo race championship the 1st and 2nd positions are the Rotor/Talon Pilots Leonardo and Paulo also.  You can check the web site www.fpvl.com.br for more information.

By the way, congratulations to Wills Wing for the job they are doing with Nene.  The Talon is getting better and better each change they make.  I was very happy with my Talon 150 at the worlds in Brasília, it was gliding very well.

Discuss "Talon’s excel" at the Oz Report forum   link»

to Table of Contentsto next topic Branding – audience perceptions

Wed, Oct 8 2003, 8:00:03 am GMT
branding

Belinda Boulter|branding|Dan Nelson|PG|USHGA|weather

It is just spectacular here in Kentucky as we drive west.  It’s seventy nine degrees at 3:30 PM and the skies are filled with beautiful cu’s. No over development and cloud base at about four thousand feet AGL.  The winds are very light.  This is blue grass country, so plenty of places to land, but stay away from the thoroughbreds.

It was also great weather yesterday as we drove from the Outer Banks through Virginia and into West Virginia on highway 64. The cu’s started later in the morning near Richmond and built as we climbed into the mountains in West Virginia.

As we drove along I thought about Dan Nelson’s presentation at the USHGA BOD meeting on growth and marketing for the USHGA.  I’ll have a lot more to say about it later, but I thought I would begin with this installment.

Brands and branding.  Belinda says that a brand is what other people think about you.  The brand belongs to the audience, not to the performer, organization, or company.  So I was thinking about West Virginia’s brand as we drove through and camped in the state.

For me the first thing that comes to mind (this is before I got to West Virginia) is strip mines.  I expected to see them everywhere.  My perception as I traveled along Interstate 64 was that the top of the hills were not in fact being chopped off and sent by barge to Ohio to the coal-based electrical generators (Ohio is full of them, right?). The hills were actually beautiful, tree covered and steep.

I thought West Virginia was hilly and full of hollows.  Well, it is hard for someone who is much more familiar with the mountains of central Idaho, the Rockies, the Sawtooths, and the Sierra Nevadas, to consider that there might be mountains on the east coast.  But my perception as I drove through eastern West Virginia, and camped there for the night on the Greenbrier River was that these were pretty close to “real” mountains.

West Virginia’s brand led me to expect to see a lot of poverty up in those hollows, and there did seem to be some in the hills with some poor looking houses.  There doesn’t seem to be any agricultural lands in the west in the mountains, so one can understand why there might be less income.  Otherwise the state looked reasonably prosperous.

I expected West Virginia to be full of uneducated poor white people of Scot and Irish descent.  Went through too quick to check that out.  The RV Park owner didn’t have any teeth missing.  Belinda mentioned her expectation for crafts and Fox Fire.  We did find a craft center in Beckley.

Other WV brand items?  Fiddle music?  Home made music.  John Denver’s song – “Take me home, mountain momma…”

We did run into the coal when we arrived in western West Virginia in Charleston.  The sky looked as polluted as it had when we left Los Angeles last February.  There were coal yards, long coal trains, coal on barges, and coal fired electric generating plants.  It was depressing to see the bad air.

So what does this have to do with branding the USHGA, hang gliding, and paragliding?  It’s an example of branding, and how it is often beyond the control of the entity with the brand.

What is the “brand” of the word “branding?” Belinda and I agreed – sleazy, manipulative, a bunch of logos, image, a gloss over reality, something not to be trusted, associated with corporations and private companies, not membership based organizations.

So when it comes to branding the USHGA, the terminology is already off putting, something that doesn’t sound right for a non profit membership organization like ours.  Our thoughts were more along the lines of “audience perception.”

Hang Gliding, the brand - crazies, sport for young men, static ridge soaring, doing dangerous stuff for little reward, dangerous aircraft, isn’t that sport dead?, I’d like to try dune flying once, old guy’s sport (a different audience here). Of course different audiences will have different perceptions.

Paragliding – Dayglo colors, you’ve already thrown the chute, easy to learn, safe, I went parasailing once, slow.

USHGA – see hang gliding above, otherwise invisible.

Belinda felt that hang gliding was an out dated 70’s fashion and that paragliding was an eighties fashion (of course, it really didn’t get going until the nineties). Hang gliding has no fashion sense and is not cool at all.

Of course, there are a number of audiences that don’t have these perceptions of hang gliding and paragliding.  If we want to build a hang gliding or paragliding or USHGA brand we have to decide what audiences are worth going after and whether it is worth attempting to change their perceptions.

Off the top of my head I would say it is ridiculous to try to promote a USHGA brand more generally.  Promote the sports and increase the number of participants and then they shall come to the USHGA (if they have a good brand).

I hope that you can put up with my use of the word “brand” here.

Discuss "Branding – audience perceptions" at the Oz Report forum   link»

Wed, Oct 8 2003, 4:00:04 am EDT

to Table of Contentsto next topic You can leave your hat on

Costas N. Papaspyrou «cn-pappy» writes:

You know, no matter how we try to use aviation terminology terms, other words prevail.  So here in Greece hang glider pilots call the nose cone, the hat.  We use the word “Kappelo” which sounds Italian.  We even use Kappelaki which means a small hat.

You see Kappelaki is more correct.  Nose cones on planes might get broken when struck by birds, but they don’t come off.  If the nose cone on gliders comes off, it is more a Kappelaki to me. Don’t blow your hat off.

Discuss "You can leave your hat on" at the Oz Report forum   link»

Wed, Oct 8 2003, 4:00:05 am EDT

to Table of Contentsto next topic 2003 Mosquito Bite

Larry Jorgensen|Mosquito Bite 2003|photo

Robert F. Farmer «robert.farmer» writes:

I uploaded new photos to the hang gliding album: http://community.webshots.com/user/ocitgo

larry jorgensen «ailarry» writes:

 

Here are your winners for Mosquito Bite 2003. They all had at least four landing and all very consistent.  The most incredible of course being Kelly, new pilot kicking butt.

(editor’s note: Larry is referring to the young Ms. Kelly Larson on the left.)

Discuss "2003 Mosquito Bite" at the Oz Report forum   link»

Wed, Oct 8 2003, 4:00:06 am EDT

to Table of Contentsto next topic Oz Report USHGA forum

USHGA

The Oz Report USHGA forum seems to have been a great success.  Well over 4,000 views of the various posts.  I didn’t get as many people contributing as I would have liked, but perhaps we’ll get that next time.  I did get Chuck Scribner posting as Quest.  I just wish he would make shorter posts with one idea at a time and not use scatological references (which I pull).

The USHGA BOD voted to create committee forums on their web site similar to what I’ve done.  Maybe they will be used next time.  In the meantime it is hoped that the various committee members will use the USHGA committee forum to communicate with USHGA BOD members on their committees as well as with USHGA members.

The idea is that it is quite possible to get most of the committee’s work done before the bi-annual meetings.  Since there is not enough time to carefully consider the agenda items at the meetings, and this is a prime area of dysfunction for the BOD, it is hoped that the forum really get used in a timely fashion.  I will work hard to make sure that this happens.

I hope to be back at the spring BOD meeting and to report on it there.  I’ll see if I do this on the USHGA web site or on the Oz Report web site.  We’ll see what I can work out with the USHGA.

I sure hope that the USHGA doesn’t think of their forums as somehow “official,” in the sense that everything has to be “approved” before it goes up on the forums.  This would be the death of them.

Discuss "Oz Report USHGA forum" at the Oz Report forum   link»

Wed, Oct 8 2003, 4:00:07 am EDT

to Table of Contentsto next topic USHGA BOD

Dennis Cavagnaro|Malcolm Jones|USHGA|Worlds

There is a lot more to write about the USHGA BOD meeting, so there will be more to come.

Dennis Cavagnaro «dcavagnaro» writes re my statements re what went down re Malcolm Jones:

A guy risks a career and monies on a concept that help to change and grow a sport.  Invests his time, pioneers the sport and in many ways is part of the energy that makes hang gliding what it is today.  And you want him to apologized to a committee of people who haven't accomplished anything with a wing or there own money.  People who have turned their collective backs on Hang Gliding pilots to cling to any flavor of the month.

This is the height of disloyalty.  What hang gliding needs is more Malcolm Jones's and less Mark and Jayne types.  All the original hang gliding types were a bit ornery, that's what it took to push the envelope.  Now you want Mr. Rogers?

I wrote back:

What is wrong with Mr. Rogers?

You have something against him?  I suggest that you could learn a lot from him.  Your e-mailing alter ego especially could learn a lot from him.  Seriously.

You are absolutely right about Malcolm and everyone on the BOD agrees, especially the people that voted against his appointment.

I want him to admit the errors that he has made and agree to get with the program.  Saying that you are sorry and meaning it is the first step to healing a broken relationship.  Is Malcolm man enough to admit that he has been wrong?

Can those on the USHGA who made the mistakes re the Worlds likewise admit that they were wrong?

Discuss "USHGA BOD" at the Oz Report forum   link»

Wed, Oct 8 2003, 4:00:08 am EDT

to Table of Contentsto next topic Personal wings

Jeff Rickard

Jeff Rickard «Jeff.Rickard» sends

"Dwain Weston knew the risks.  But the sport of BASE diving consumed him, offering what he said were life's great experiences.  "But every jump was still a gamble.  He died performing a skydiving stunt in the United States on Sunday.

"Weston and another parachutist had jumped from an aeroplane over Colorado and were to fall on either side of a 316-metre-high bridge.  Travelling at an estimated 160 km/h, he struck a railing and fell onto a rock face about 90 metres from the bottom of the gorge.

"Weston was wearing a 'wing suit', which has fabric extending below the arms to the body, with more fabric between the legs, allowing a skydiver to catch the air and travel more horizontally."

Full article: http://theage.com.au/articles/2003/10/06/1065292525849.html

Discuss "Personal wings" at the Oz Report forum   link»

to Table of Contentsto next topic Four flight helmet

Wed, Oct 8 2003, 4:00:09 am EDT

calendar|Davis Straub|Icaro 2000|record

www.Icaro2000.com

Bill writes to Icaro 2000:

I flew with the 4fight helmet today and I must say I'm very pleased with it. The temperature in the air was between 5 and 2°C and the face shield protected me from the cold.  The lens colour is perfect- not too dark and just the right shade to enhance clouds.  Also the face shield hardly fogs up at all.

Noise from the face shield is much less than my other helmet and its good to see the chin guard doesn’t protrude too far forward.  The aero tail only touched my harness lines when I was looking extremely high.

So thank you again for a great looking helmet that will make my flying a lot more comfortable.

Discuss "Four flight helmet" at the Oz Report forum   link»

The Oz Report, a near-daily, world wide hang gliding news ezine, with reports on competitions, pilot rankings, political issues, fly-ins, the latest technology, ultralight sailplanes, reader feedback and anything else from within the global HG community worthy of coverage. Hang gliding, paragliding, hang gliders, paragliders, aerotowing, hang glide, paraglide, platform towing, competitions, fly-ins. Hang gliding and paragliding news from around the world, by Davis Straub.

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