News & Announcements

Nick Jones, HPAC Director, Ontario

A concentrated comment campaign by HPAC and other aviation organizations has resulted in several important changes in the proposed legislation currently under final review and soon to be implemented. The changes that most directly affect HPAC are:

1. The definition of excluded “Ad-Hoc” aerodromes has been changed to encompass locations used for not more than 90 calendar days in a year v.s. 30 days in the draft regulation. This is not a block of 90 consecutive days, but 90 individual flying days. Many launches and LZs are used fewer than 90 days in a year and are therefore exempt from this new regulation. The justification for this change referenced HPAC’s request for an increase to 180 days and is almost certainly due to HPAC’s efforts.
2. “Aerodrome work” is now defined as a) construction of a new aerodrome or b) construction of new runways or extension of runway length by 100m or 10%. Of these only construction of a new aerodrome could possibly apply to our sites. Existing launches and LZ’s typically have no “runways” to extend. Furthermore the term “construction” is not defined and it is likely reasonable to conclude that any activity not requiring a building or similar permit from a local authority is not “construction”. It would be quite a stretch to define cutting grass and shrubbery as “construction”.
3. The process for sites not excluded above, and more than 4km from the built-up area of a city or town, now includes only notification to Transport Canada, Nav Canada, operator of any airport within 30 nautical miles, the authority responsible for any protected area within 4km of the site and the landowner of any land bordering the site. Note: this has changed from “consultation” to “notification”. And this still only applies to construction of a new site intended for use more than 90 calendar days in a year. Furthermore by specifically referencing “the built up area of a city or town” this relaxed process likely applies to sites in proximity to built up areas that are not part of cities or towns.
4. Only sites intended for use more than 90 calendar days of the year and where “construction” is to take place within 4km of a city or town still require a public consultation process.

To review the draft regulation refer to: http://gazette.gc.ca/rp-pr/p1/2015/2015-07-11/html/reg14-eng.php

Thanks to Andre Nadeau, HPAC’s Transport Canada Liaison, and all of the HPAC members who took the time to submit comments.

* Note, text in italics are the opinions and/or inferences of the author and not a legal opinion or interpretation of the legislation.

Nick Jones, HPAC Director, Ontario

Due to safety concerns, the HPAC is putting further endorsements for speed flying on hold. Concerns relate to the lack of certified instructors and curriculum, and the recent second fatality in two years in BC. HPAC will study its relationship with the emerging sport and report back to the members in due course.

Pilots frequently call the HPAC Office asking whether or not our HPAC insurance covers third party liability for paramotoring. It does not. Paramotors fall in the classification of ultralight, a completely separate category of aircraft under Transport Canada.

Members who are learning paramotoring are recommended to take instruction only from Transport-Canada certified ultralight instructors to attain a license, which is required under Transport Canada regulations, regardless of where the paramotor is flown. Pilots can seek information for ultralight insurance from The UltraLight Pilots Association of Canada (upac.ca).

September 18 – September 27, 2015

The Annual Meeting of our Association gets underway Saturday September 5. Members are asked to please log into the site at hpac.ca and there will be a direct link right on the homepage to the Forum and our AGM. As this is a member-driven Association, your votes on the budget and other issues are of critical importance. Please contact the Office if you should have any difficulty accessing the AGM and we will help (admin@hpac.ca).

Now that our season is slowly drawing to a close in parts of Canada, here is a great memory of Yamaska, which is where the 2014 PG Nationals were held, as recorded by a visiting pilot from the USA, Davidson Da Silva and friends from Boston. We are always happy to welcome our visitors to our beautiful flying sites in Canada.

In 2014 the following regions will be electing, or renewing, the Board members representing that region: Saskatchewan, Ontario, Atlantic Canada, BC. The process is underway to determine whether incumbents are intending to let their names stand again and for elections to be held.

Please contact the Office if you have any questions regarding this process.

March 3-9th, 2014 marked the 4th annual Women of Aviation Worldwide Week.  This event celebrates the anniversary of the first woman pilot license being issued, with the purpose of introducing more women to flight and aviation-related careers.

As a female running my own paragliding business I wanted to participate, so last year I held a draw for a free instructional tandem flight to introduce a woman to paragliding. It was a big success, so this year I wanted to do even more!  In addition to the draw I contacted “Girls Fly 2-The Sky’s No Limit” who were organizing an event at the Langley Airport over the weekend of March 8 & 9.

From information on joining the Coast Guard and SAR to interactive displays from UFV that allowed girls to “build” airplane parts, the event had more to offer than just the free flights. Yes, that’s right…the event offered free flights to women and girls who had never been in a small plane or helicopter before! The smiles that weekend were huge with lots of girls begging to go for another flight. The organizers had provided a space for me so I could show another form of aviation – paragliding!

I brought an old kiting wing & had it bunched up so the participants could check out a paraglider first hand, although the fixed wing pilots shuddered at the “tiny strings” that hold us up in the air! Surprisingly the biggest hit was the harness I had brought along. Everyone wanted to try it on and run around, with lots of kids asking their parents to take a picture of them “paragliding”. It was a super fun weekend, and a great opportunity to talk about our sport as well as book tandem flights and lessons for the Moms & Dads. Thanks to events like this we can provide more positive exposure to our favourite sports…I’m already brainstorming new ideas for the event in 2015!

Martina Lang
Owner and HPAC Instructor
jetsetparagliding.com

The HPAC Office is no longer sending out the old laminated cards that came with every membership renewal. This decision had to be made due to the following: in 2013 the HPAC Office produced over 4,000 cards (each new membership or renewal, or new rating, or renewed First Aid or new HAGAR, etc. triggered a new membership card); the manual labour to produce the cards is excessive, supplies and postage are hugely expensive. It is not a good use of HPAC resources to continue with this process.

In addition, members had requested that their cards be available to them electronically so that all additional ratings or membership renewals would be available to them right away on line.

HPAC now has an all-electronic system: After you renew yourself on the HPAC website, you will automatically be sent your new membership card, showing your new expiry date. You can save that e-mail on your smartphone, if you wish, or print it out and make as many copies as you like. (If you should not receive that automatic e-mail, please contact the HPAC Office.)

As well, you can at any time go to hpac.ca and log in, and right on the homepage, under the Join/Renew Quick Link, you will see “My Membership Card”. Click there and your card pops right up.

HPAC will be producing a permanent card this fall, that shows your lifetime membership number but still will require login to the site to get your current membership and ratings status.

Please call me if you need any additional information.

As part of the Organizational Renewal of our Association, the Council for Senior Instructors (CSI) has been reviewing the current Requirements for Instructor Certifications and Tandem Endorsements and is expected to make a recommendation to the Board later in 2014 for the changes to the current requirements to be formalized. The objective is to ensure that HPAC’s standards are the highest they can be, with a focus on safety.

Recommendations for Tandem Pre-Flight Safety Protocols have been made by Martin Henry, former President of HPAC and long-time hang glider pilot. These will now be circulated by the Safety Committee (Suzanne Francoeur and George Martin) to all current tandem pilots in Canada for feedback and then will go to CSI (Council of Senior Instructors) for feedback and recommendation to the Board of Directors. These protocols will then become a formal Standard Operating Procedure for HPAC.

Jasper Park Superintendent Greg Fenton has recently committed to finalizing the guidelines for hang gliding and paragliding in Jasper National Park on a one-year trial project beginning in late spring 2015.

Flying in National Parks is still off limits until HPAC gets the go ahead and publicizes the guidelines in a few months time, but we are closer.

As a recap of where we have been on this issue: Beginning in 2007, the BCHPA and HPAC initiated a formal request to Parks Canada for their consideration of removing the prohibition against non-motorized hang gliders and paragliders in National Parks. A National Assessment convened by Parks Canada was held in 2008 in Vancouver and by early 2012, the federal legislation was changed to remove the prohibition, a huge achievement for our sport.

However, a Local Assessment would need to be done by each individual park to determine that the sport would be allowed in that park, at the discretion of the local Park Superintendent.

A small committee of HPAC has been working with Banff, Jasper and the Mountain National Parks continuously for the last three years to complete a Local Assessment. Since early in 2013, with the finalization of the user guidelines having been approved by the Parks, it was imminent that we would be allowed to start flying in Jasper Park in the 2013 season, with some conditions and as a one-year pilot project. However, more consultation was conducted with other park stakeholders and the delay caused the 2013 season to be lost. Our full expectation was for early 2014 but that also again was delayed, due to other priorities by Park Administration.

Considering HPAC’s complete and repeated submission of any and all documents required, and a very productive relationship with Staff in the various Mountain parks, it was with some frustration that your committee approached the Superintendent of Jasper Park, Mr. Greg Fenton, to obtain a commitment as to when the trial project could begin so that we could inform out members. We now have a commitment that the guidelines for flying in Jasper Park would be formally approved this winter by the Park and that we can expect to be able to advise members as to these guidelines by no later than spring 2015.

It has been a long haul with this project, but your committee is confident that Jasper Park will be available to our beautiful sport in early 2015. Conditions will be publicized well in advance, as this is a trial. And this will serve as a precedent for several other National Parks in Canada that have been identified as ideal for our sport.

And until then, thank you for observing the no-fly rules in National Parks.

Will Gadd
Bruce Busby
Alan Polster
Margit Nance