Hang Gliding and Paragliding Volume 44 / Issue 2: February 2014 | Page 31

YEARS
of

Members
for

LIFE
by

Lifetime membership in the United States Hang Gliding

and Paragliding Association was only offered for a few years.
Initially, it cost $250, a seemingly huge amount at the time,
when yearly dues were only $10. During the time period it was
offered, 32 pilots bought a lifetime membership. Of those 32, 21
are current USHPA members.
USHPA remains America’s only nationally recognized
free-flight governing body of hang gliding and paragliding. It is
incredible that a few of our pilots have been flying for more than
40 years. Some of their stories are related below.

Tommy Thompson USHPA #2531 (Lifetime)
In 1971, I saw a photo of a guy 10 feet in the air above a
sand dune, so I started building my own bamboo-andplastic sail hang glider with a hang cage. The following year,
there was enough interest in my area to start the North
Carolina Hang Glider Society. We had about 50 members
and published a monthly newsletter called the Albatross.
In 1973, I flew my first mountain flight off Fancy Gap,
Virginia, on my own design, a home-built aluminum-frame
Rogallo with a Dacron sail. After three years in the Army,
serving in the 82nd Airborne Paratroopers, I returned
to North Carolina and pursued hang gliding on the local
mountain slopes.
In 1981, I flew for an hour to win the prestigious Order
of the Raven Award #160 at Grandfather Mountain, near
Linville, North Carolina. This was an advanced-rated flying

K AT R I N A MOH R

site that had been the location of the US Nationals on
several occasions and was notorious for strong conditions, a
small landing zone, and lots of turbulence.
In 1986, my wife Robbie and I purchased a home and
soon cleared a launch on Sauratown Mountain in Stokes
County, North Carolina. Six years later, the sky gods were
good to me. I flew a personal best soaring flight of eight
hours 35 minutes out of our backyard from a slope launch
called Alligator Rock. I still fly there on warm and sunny
south-wind days, in my Wills Wing 195 Attack Falcon
with a semi-transparent Mylar sail.
My adventurous trips to flying sites, such as Crestline
in California, Mt. Whitney in the Owens Valley, Point of
the Mountain in Utah, Mt. Yamaska in Montreal, Canada,
and aero-towing in Florida, have been fun. However, most
of my flying has been on the East Coast, especially when
it’s northwest conditions at Big Walker Mountain near
Mechanicsburg, Virginia. The 3200-foot MSL slope launch
and LZ are both owned by Jim Bogle. He maintains the site
and oversees the Soar Big Walker Sky Pirates Club on his
property. Hang glider pilots have flown there for 40 years.
I became a USHPA member in 1973, a lifetime member
in 1980, and a 20th-anniversary charter member in 1991.
It’s hard to believe I have been a member for 40 years.
When I sent in the $250 for lifetime membership, dues
were only $10 a year, and I remember thinking I would have
to be a member 25 years to break even at that rate.

LEFT Tommy Thompson with his granddaughter, Haylee, in 2011 at Sauratown Mountain, North Caroli