Jim Little <<apdir>> writes:

The City of Big Spring would be delighted to host the Hang Gliders
in August of 2018. We will plan for August 4 thru 11. I anticipate no conflicts
at this time.

Your presence has been sorely missed this year: I can’t tell you how many times
I have been asked when the event was going to occur? And by people you would
least expect to have an interest.

Let us know how we can best facilitate the event.

We appreciate the interest and pilots’ desire to return to Big Spring. You and
the pilots are a great group of people to work with.

This is the message that Belinda sent to Jim on Friday:

Dear Jim,

Davis and I have begun planning for the 2018 hang gliding season. Davis has
polled the competition pilots, and 43 of them have said they want to come to Big
Spring next August. We are excited and encouraged about the possibility of
coming back to Big Spring for competition, and are writing to ask for your
permission and support.

The proposed dates are August 4 through 11, with Saturday the 4th being an
official practice day. The competition will be sanctioned and insured through
the USHPA. There is now a fairly elaborate application process for the
insurance, which we will undertake once we have preliminary approvals.

As you know, Russell Brown will only bring his tow planes if we have a minimum
of 40 pilots, and we will only hold the event if we have Russell's planes. If
Russell comes there will likely be tandem flights. We will be working hard to
promote the competition, to ensure that there is a good turnout. Based on this
survey we believe we will have enough pilots to go ahead.

So what do you think? May we hold an August 2018 hang gliding competition at
McMahon-Wrinkle airport? Will these dates work for you? Do you have issues or
concerns we need to address at this early planning stage? Once we have your OK
we will go ahead with the sanctioning application. We need to hear from you by
next week, in time to submit our sanctioning proposal to the USHPA for
consideration at the October 19 board meeting.

I hope you are as pleased as we are that we may be back next summer. We're
looking forward to hearing from you.