Category: People

Ted Hurley

About You:

Age? 30

Where were you born? Massachusetts

Where do you live now? Sandy Utah

Occupation? Owner/ Operator Wasatch Hang Gliding LLC

Previous occupations? Hang gliding instructor - Kitty Hawk Kites, Lookout Mountain Flight Park. Tandem pilot- Lookout Mountain Flight Park/ Coronet Peak tandems

How and when did you start flying? I started flying in 2012, I needed a summer job during college and heard about becoming a hang gliding instructor at Kitty Hawk Kites. I took the job to spend the summer at the beach and fell in love with flying

Which pilots most influenced you? Pilots who taught me/ who I’ve worked under/with-Johnny Thompson, Bruce Weaver, Matt Taber, Angus Tapper, Senda Kazuhiro, Dave Miller, Scott Schneider, Paul Voight. Experienced pilots I’ve spoken with/ flown with- Dave Chapman, Greg Heckman, Woflgang Siess. But mostly I’ve drawn influence from the many friends I’ve flown wand talked about flying with throughout the years of whom there’s fortunately too many to list here

Where and what was your most memorable flying experience? Probably my first soaring flight at Ellenville in New York, not all that interesting of a story but that was the flight where I really felt the beginning of what the sport has to offer. Other than that there’s so many flights that are memorable in their own ways from low saves, hard won thermals, high and far, butt clenching turbulence, near misses, accidents, awesome landings, difficult landings, special passengers, and beautiful locales its hard to pick out any one flight as the most noteworthy.

What would your motto be? FLY FLY FLY

What sparked your interest in hang gliding? I needed a summer job. When I actually tried it the dynamic nature of the sport, the limitless room for improvement, and the amazing community that surrounds it sold me.

About your business:

What do you love most about teaching hang gliding? *Not applicable to dealers who are not attached to a school. Sharing the sport that I love with others/ being able to relive my own early achievements and seeing the students progress into becoming hang glider pilots.

What is one of your fondest memories of teaching/flying? Too many to pick one. A recent memory that sticks out is flying a tandem on the North Side and watching one of our recent students, who has been working very hard at the sport, bench up for the first time. I got to fly the tandem glider over to them and wave at them, and I could see their smile from about 100 meters away.

How has hang gliding changed your life? Its been the driving force in my life for the last 9 years, since I got into it. I met my now wife while teaching in North Carolina and have made many friendships that will last a lifetime.

What do you do during the winter months? Currently I take a seasonal ski related job and spend the winter snowboarding and flying around Utah. Our school is still open, just with reduced hours. Past winters I’ve gone to Queenstown to fly tandems for Coronet Peak Tandems, and I’m considering doing that again when the pandemic is finally behind us. I’ve also been playing with the idea of trying to organize flying trips to winter flying locales.

How do you keep your flying fitness? I carry the gliders up the training hill for the newest/ less physically capable students so I can get more flights out of them in any given session. Other than that I try to maintain an active lifestyle. This winter I’m planning to do a lot of snowboarding.

What forms of teaching do you utilize? Foot launch/towing/scooter/quad? Foot launch

How do you promote the sport and what works best in your location? At the moment a lot of word of mouth. I’ve run a Facebook and Instagram “ad” before and will probably try a google ad soon as well. Anecdotally the thing that has worked best for us is having a reasonably user friendly website/ booking system and being easy to find on google. It seems like a lot of our students come from word of mouth, or are people that know they want to get into the sport and have sought us out.

Do you teach HG and PG? Hang gliding.

Your thoughts:

In your opinion, what would improve the sport of Hang Gliding? More long term instructors/ more schools and clubs. I’ve known way too many promising instructors that left the profession for lack of pay/ opportunity and I think that that has had a larger impact on the sport than most people realize.

What would build the sport and attract potential pilots? More accessibility and resources for new pilots, more schools, more pilots to spread the word/ fly with. It’s a longer road from the first lesson to becoming a competent pilot and I think that’s daunting for a lot of people.

Where should most of the development in hang gliders be focused? The new generation of intermediate gliders like the Gecko have been fantastic. Its very awesome to have a step up from single surface gliders that isn’t drastic but has a lot of performance. I think that improved handling and landing characteristics do a lot to get and keep newer pilots in the sport. While high performance gliders are a blast to fly, I like to emphasize moving up gradually. I’ve seen pilots leave the sport because their new glider scared them.

Should the structure of competitions change? I have never competed so don’t have the experience to comment. I’ve heard pilots rave about the benefits of competing and how great of a time they’ve had and how much they’ve learned at competitions even when they didn’t place anywhere worth celebrating. I’d like to see a day where there were a reasonably large group of pilots who could make a living doing nothing but competing, but it seems like the public would need to get on board a little more for that to happen. So, as an outsider I’d like to see improvements in the filming/ coverage/ broadcasting of competitions. I’d also like to see an increase in the amount of informal competitions/ fly ins.

Thanks!

Category: Dealers

Free Fly HG

Dealer: Canada
Contact: Pedro Eiler Pedersen
Company: Free Fly HG
Address:
1809 Arborlynn Drive,
North Vancouver,
V7J 2V7, BC, Canada
Tel: +1 778 838 2872
Email: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
Website: freeflyhg.com

Category: Dealers

Yuji Suzuki

Dealer: Japan
Company: Haretobi Hang Gliding School     
Address: 
1265 Kobana,
Ishioka-City, Ibaraki Japan 315-0161
Tel: +81 90 6106 6466
Email: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
Website: www.haretobi.jp

Category: Dealers

Hadi Kahani

Dealer: Iran
Company: Homaye Pars
Tel: +989 371149733
Email:  This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.