Luke Waters writes:

"1) Developed and implemented a Foundation For Free
Flight Grant system for a $500 award for anyone successfully completing PASA
certification to offset initial costs."



Just a partial refund. Being certified by PASA is required before you can apply
purchase RRRG insurance. I know of no other small aviation organization that
charges it's members to be pay and be approved by a 3rd party organization
before they can then even get an insurance quote or apply.



"2) Reduced the cost of SBSF PASA dues 18% between 2016
and 2017."



Reducing this cost is of little benefit to instructors, when by all accounts
instructors should not be burdened with this cost in the first place.



Who runs PASA? How are they are related to the RRRG and the policies imposed? Is
there another method to be approved to buy the RRRG insurance without paying
PASA?



I think the answers are; PASA is run by a small group of people, those people
are heavily involved in the RRRG and the RRRG policies, and there is no other
accepted approval method to get the RRRG insurance.



"3) Increased the number of flight schools with risk and
safety management plans and commercial liability insurance operating in the US
from (9) 2014 to 66 in 2018."



This is misleading at best. The reality is under the old system there were only
9 schools in the country that required a special commercial liability policy,
usually required by the state or feds that managed the land they operated from.



Now under the new USHPA policy, all instructors working for pay must be insured
under the new RRRG commercial policy. So to say it went from 9 schools to 66
schools as a way to say the new policy somehow created more schools and is
growing the sport is misleading at best. It was a policy change that lead to
those numbers, and overall there are many less schools and instructors under new
policy.



"4) Kept open approximately 250 hang gliding sites
nationwide that would have closed without landowners insurance."



Another very misleading quote at best. The truth is the USHPA site liability
insurance policy was [unknowingly] abused by many clubs over the last several
decades. In many cases USHPA site insurance was used as a first level initial
negotiating tool to access a site. Of course land owners presented with an
option to insure would opt to have the site insured. But in reality many of
these sites could have been flown without insurance, and still could be.



"Virtually every school we insure has experienced steady
growth over the last three years except for two of the largest hang gliding
operations. Many small hang gliding operations have experienced year over year
increases."



That is absolutely despite the costs in time and money imposed by PASA/RRRG, and
to take credit for the hard work of those schools and instructors is absurd!



"The small hang gliding schools that you lost refused to
do 10 hours of homework and invest less than $1000 to continue to grow in a
professional environment. Instead they quit. And that's our fault?"



This is the quote that really stands out to me, and is what brought me here to
make this post.



This is an absolute lie and extremely insulting to the hard working instructors
and schools that had to hang it up under the new USHPA policies.



In no other form of small business commercial aviation is there the paperwork
and bureaucratic requirements to obtain insurance as there is with PASA/RRRG.
PASA/RRRG requires not only extremely detailed operational documentation, but
site documentation for every site to be flown that is simply too much of a
burden for small time instructors that teach at multiple sites. As you go
through this paperwork it becomes obvious this is not in place to increase
safety in any way, it is solely there to reduce USHPA exposure to liability.



Secondly, the price, where exactly did you get the $1000 quote? The reality is
USHPA wants to charge a percentage of GROSS profits. Again, in no other
insurance have I experienced this type of premium fee structure. In all other
cases premiums are dictated by the associated risks, not by how much money
someone is making.



Of course this system rewards flights schools with low operating costs like PG
foot launch while placing higher burden on schools with higher operating costs.
Is it a surprise very few hang gliding aerotow operations are not RRRG insured? No flight
instructors are doing this for the money, but we do need to be able to make a
living.

https://OzReport.com/1556991138