A member writes:

I've been thinking about the RRG appeal from USHPA, and I would
like to issue a small challenge. More on that in a minute.

My free flight career began in my teens, when I bought plans from the back of
Popular Science and built a “Batso” Rogallo wing hang glider from bamboo and
plastic sheeting. Knowing what I know these days, I thank God we never got that
thing airborne! Then came a long hiatus while I did other things, but I always
wanted to get back to it some time when I had some money.

For my 50th birthday, I gave myself paragliding lessons. Pretty soon I bought my
first wing, and before too long I was a signed-off pilot. It's been more than a
dream to do this – paragliding takes me out of my normal concerns and worries,
and for those minutes or hours spent flying I feel transformed. All of you know
what I'm talking about. I don't get to fly very often (I'm only at 150 flights
after 10 years), but the times I do are precious. Those times are gold.

Now here we are with insurance problems threatening our ability to go and do
this transforming thing. I immediately liked the RRG idea when it was put
forward. It's just the kind of bootstrap-style do-it-yourself thing that should
appeal to free flyers, and it's a typically American approach to a problem. This
is one of the best things about the American mind, I think, the tendency to get
to work and make things happen that we care about. I decided on the day I heard
about the RRG that I was going to contribute. But how much? How much do I care
about this? It turns out, a fair bit.

I've had this little pot of money sitting around for years, accumulated birthday
and Christmas cash from my ancient mother and some other small sources. I could
never figure out what to do with it. I was gonna buy a GoPro, but my wife beat
me to it and gave me one for Christmas. I was gonna do an SIV with it, but that
got folded into a family vacation and I didn't have to spend it. So it's been
sitting there, slowly piling up, not doing anything useful. I have more toys and
tools than I can use, or even find on some days. The house is paid off. We have
no children draining the bank account. Our needs are modest. There has been no
dire thing crying out for that money. Until now.

So my challenge is directed toward people in situations similar to mine, to
think big. At first I was going to donate $200. Then I thought, well, why not
$500? Then I thought . . . Well, yesterday I donated $1000 to the RRG fund.

My reasoning is pretty simple. My USHPA number is in the 90,000s, which means
that there are a lot of us. I understand that not all those numbers are still
active, or maybe even still alive, but I run into pilots all the time and there
are still a bunch of us. The amount of money we're trying to raise is just not
that much in aggregate. The last thing I saw said that we were 60% of the way
there – we have over half of the two million bucks needed. We need something
like $900,000 more. I am suggesting that with thousands of active pilots in this
country, surely there are 900 people like me, who can afford to donate $1000.

Of course not everyone can afford this much money. Of course you have to decide
for yourself how much is reasonable. Of course no one should be telling you what
to do. But I looked back over my credit card and debit card bills from last
year, and I spent well over $1000 on flying trips. So did a lot of you. It's
clear that a lot of us are willing to spend this kind of cash to fly every year.
Why not once to help preserve the future of free flight? If my $1000 means that
I'm carrying the can for nine other people who could have given $100 but
wouldn't, so be it. I don't care. I will carry that can. This is important.

There's the challenge to the free-flight community that benefits directly from
USHPA efforts. I'm just a middle-range pilot of pretty average means but I'm in
a position to do a bit more than I originally thought. Some of you might be,
too. Donate more than you were planning to. Don't screw around. Let's do this.

Belinda and I just increased our donation to $1,000. It will go in
before the end of this year.